


The Tea Maker

by TheIronBee (canadduh)



Series: Tea Verse [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, BAMF Tony Stark, Canon Temporary Character Death, Developing Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Minor Character Death, Not Captain America: The First Avenger Compliant, Not Iron Man compliant, Pre-Iron Man 1, Pre-Relationship, Protective Bucky Barnes, Protective Steve Rogers, Protective Tony Stark, Soulmates, Time Travel, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony-centric, stuckony - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:26:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 25,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24699793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/canadduh/pseuds/TheIronBee
Summary: To find your soulmate, you must visit The Tea Maker on your twenty-first birthday.The Tea Maker is older than anyone can fathom. There are rumors that she’s been around since the dawn of time, that she knows all and sees all. She will share with you a cup of tea, and then she’ll read your destiny.The problem?Tony Stark does not like tea.He’s also pretty sure he doesn’t like The Tea Maker.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers/Tony Stark, James "Bucky" Barnes/Tony Stark, Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Series: Tea Verse [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1800670
Comments: 109
Kudos: 446





	1. Prologue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meet The Tea Maker.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my first Stuckony fic. I wanna give a huge thank you to [Tree](https://archiveofourown.org/users/treesramblings/profile), [Vania1824](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vania18), and [Lexi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fearlesslexi) for their help betaing this fic. 
> 
> I wrote the first draft in eight days and it was a mess, so I appreciate the help outta them.

The room is lit by candles smelling of beeswax and lilacs. To most people, the scent is comforting, reminding them of long ago memories where they would cuddle up in their mother’s arms and listen to story after story. Even if the exact memory is different, the sentiment remains the same. The combined smell of beeswax and lilac is soothing. Sometimes, though, those same candles smell different, filling the room with smells of cinnamon and campfire. It really just depends on the person.

In the center, behind the low table—made from a dark wood, old enough that the marks of the fine china are clearly visible on the surface with divots in the wood made smooth from centuries and centuries of use—sits an old woman. Just as no one knows how old the table is, no one knows how old the woman is.

The Tea Maker sits still, breathing in the scent permeating the room, and waits. She waits until someone comes to her: that is all The Tea Maker does. She never has to wait long, for there are many people. Some wonder if there are many Tea Makers, but every description is of the same woman. Most people have just accepted that she is magic.

According to legend, The Tea Maker doesn’t need to eat anymore. She drinks tea when she is with a client and that is all she needs to survive.

An assistant younger than The Tea Maker—who has been there nearly as long—escorts The Tea Maker’s clients into the room. He is old and frail but somehow still strong and timeless. He leads the clients to the lounge where they wait for The Tea Maker to be ready. Everyone always waits alone.

When they are escorted to the back, the clients are invited to drink a cup of tea with The Tea Maker. They don’t talk: the clients never know what to say. When the client finishes the tea, The Tea Maker reads the leaves, and the client is told who their soulmate is and when they shall meet for the first time.


	2. Tony Stark Does Not Like Tea

The law states that when you turn twenty-one you are required to visit The Tea Maker—a crony old woman who tells you who you’re destined to be with for the rest of your life.

Tony has never looked forward to his twenty-first birthday. He has looked into every possible loophole there could be for him to avoid it and has found absolutely nothing.

“This sucks,” Tony groans, throwing his head in Rhodey’s lap as he flops onto the couch. “Why do I have to spend my best birthday with some old lady?”

“The whole thing takes five minutes, Tones,” Rhodey reminds him like they haven’t had variations of this conversation thousands of times over the last six years since the two of them met at MIT. “You’ll be fine.”

“What if I don’t want to know who I’m destined to get it on with?” Tony whines. He closes his eyes as Rhodey starts to gently run his fingers through Tony’s hair. “Maybe I want it to be a surprise?”

Rhodey doesn’t answer that. He rarely does anymore. Not since the time—when Tony was eighteen and high on who-knows-what—Tony had accidentally told Rhodey that he _did_ want to know who his soulmate is. Since then, Rhodey has stopped any conversation on the topic if Tony mentions not wanting to know.

Even so, Tony is not above complaining about it.

***

“Why do I have to wear a suit?” Tony asks, not for the first time since he started getting ready for his appointment with The Tea Maker. “Seriously, I hate these things.”

“You’ve been wearing suits your whole life.”

“Which is probably why I hate them,” Tony turns around, holding his arm out to Rhodey so he can finish the last cufflink. “Can’t you come with me?”

“I can come as far as the front door, Tones,” Rhodey reminds with a long-suffering sigh. “But you know you have to see her alone.”

“Fine.”

***

From the outside, The Tea Maker’s house seems so ordinary that it’s almost disappointing. Tony climbs up the steps with a growing feeling of trepidation like he’s going to step through the heavy wooden door and nothing in his life is ever going to be the same.

Which, he supposes, it’s not. The Tea Maker is going to have him down a cup of leaf juice and then she’s going to tell him who he’s supposed to marry and have babies with. Tony doesn’t buy into this crap—except, he kinda does, but he’s not going to tell that to anyone.

He has a reputation to maintain as New York’s up and coming tech genius and the sole heir to Stark International. He’s known to be callous and uncaring—someone easy to underestimate—and he’d like to keep it that way.

Tony doesn’t know if he’s supposed to knock on the door or not since they’re expecting him—the appointment has been set for a year, after all—but he feels rude just walking in.

The decision is taken out of his hands when the door opens to reveal an older man in a tweed suit. A pair of sunglasses rest on top of his head, blocking a receding hairline. Tony reaches up to feel his meager beard, still growing in, as he eyes the man’s graying mustache.

“Anthony Edward Stark,” the man greets loudly and exuberantly like he knows how much Tony has been dreading this exact moment. “Welcome to The Tea House.”

“Thank you,” Tony replies. He was raised to be polite and he will not have Ana Jarvis looking down on him in disappointment.

“The Tea Maker will be with you in a moment,” the man says. Then he disappears into the back room, leaving Tony standing awkwardly in the lounge.

He wishes Rhodey could’ve come with him.

“This way,” The man’s voice startles him what feels like just moments later. Tony has to work hard not to glare. “The Tea Maker is ready for you.”

 _What if I’m not ready for her?_ Tony thinks sullenly even as he follows the man into the adjoining room.

Tony is first struck by the scents of campfire and motor oil filling the room. He wants to sink into the smell as much as he wants to run because The Tea Maker should not know Tony’s two favorite smells. Not even Rhodey knows that Tony loves the smell of a campfire, the scent of one of his happiest memories with Edwin and Ana.

“Anthony,” The Tea Maker greets. She’s old, older than Tony thinks a human has any right to be. She’s old and still beautiful and Tony wonders if that’s what his mom is going to look like when she gets older. “Please, have a seat.”

He listens, because he doesn’t know what else he can do, and tries to not let his nerves show as he sits on the cushion across from the woman who has starred in many of Tony’s nightmares.

“Have a drink,” the woman says, sliding a cup of tea over to Tony. “It’s chamomile.”

Tony takes a sip of the tea and almost spits it out. The flavor reminds him of being pushed into grass and cleaning mud out of his mouth. He swallows it instead and has to plug his nose to finish the rest of the cup. He doesn’t care if he offends The Tea Maker, he cannot stand the stuff.

“Do not worry,” The Tea Maker laughs when Tony looks at her sheepishly. “Tea is not—and pardon the pun—everyone’s cup of tea.”

The pun is so bad that Tony has to bite back a laugh. He wants to hate this woman but finds that he can’t as he meets a pair of gentle eyes and a kind smile.

“May I see your cup?” She asks like Tony has a choice. He hands it over.

“Oh,” A frown marrs delicate, timeworn features as The Tea Maker reads Tony’s destiny. “This is most unusual.”

Dread runs through Tony’s veins.

“Your soulmates are dead,” The woman looks up at Tony with tears in her eyes and Tony wants to scream. He wants to yell at her to try again, but he can’t so he just sits there, hands clasped politely in his lap as his world comes crashing down around his ears. “I am so sorry, Anthony. I cannot give you a full reading. I can only tell you there were supposed to be two and give you my condolences.”

“Okay.” Tony says, and then he leaves with his heart torn in two and all hope for the future dashed by a single sentence.

At least he still has Rhodey.

****

“She’s a scammer, Rhodey,” Tony snaps, not even bothering to look at his best friend. “There’s something wrong with her.”

“There’s nothing wrong with her, Tones.”

“My soulmates, yeah, _two_ of them, are dead, Rhodey. So either there’s something wrong with her, or there’s something wrong with me.” Tony sits up, throwing his feet onto the floor. “And I refuse to believe there’s something so wrong with me that both of my soulmates are dead.”

“Tony, I—”

“My soulmates are dead and your soulmate has been missing since the eighties and—” and Tony fucked up, he _knows_ , as soon as Rhodey’s expression drops from concerned to angry. He had known he’d fucked up as soon as he looked up Carol after days of begging Rhodey to tell him and Rhodey telling him to not do exactly that.

“Fuck you,” Rhodey says, low and cold, and this, hearing that tone in Rhodey’s voice, hurts more than knowing Tony is going to be alone forever because _his soulmates are dead_. “I never ask you for anything, Tony, and the _one time_ I do, you go behind my back like this?”

“Rhodey, I—” He’s so fucking sorry.

“Y’know what, fuck you,” Rhodey hisses, stalking to the door. He throws it open and doesn’t even bother looking at Tony as he rips out the last vestiges of his heart. “Maybe you are just a spoiled rich brat. Goodbye, Stark.”

Rhodey leaves the apartment, not even bothering to slam the door, and Tony’s left alone for the first time in six years, except now he can’t even turn to Rhodey for comfort since Rhodey’s the one leaving him, and—

He’s spiraling. Tony knows he is and there’s nothing he can do to stop it. He can’t call—he can’t talk to anyone and he can’t leave the apartment and—

He can’t.

He just... can’t.

Tony doesn’t move from the couch. Instead, he curls up into a ball, and cries himself to sleep.

****

He wakes up feeling empty. Tony’s not sure how he does it, but he makes it through the next day, then the next week, then the next month. He doesn’t talk to Rhod—Rhodes. He doesn’t even try, knowing that it’s not going to make a difference. Rhodes will either reach out to Tony, or he won’t, and there’s nothing Tony can do about it. Nothing at all.

He’s fucked up before, naturally—but never like this. Usually it’s people betraying Tony’s trust, not Tony betraying theirs.

Sometimes, on nights where he can’t sleep and the alcohol only barely takes the edge off—the nights he’s too afraid to try the drugs because there’s no one there if he’s too gone to turn on his side to throw up—he thinks about what he’d say to Rhodes. That he’d been curious—worried, really—about how Rhodes was supposed to meet his soulmate in 2018. He knows that soulmates can be platonic, can be familial, but he needed to know that Rhodes’ soulmate wasn’t going to be some random kid.

No, his soulmate is missing and Tony wishes more than anything that he could forget that. That he could go back in time and never break Rhodey’s trust like that again, because no matter what Tony does in the future, this will always be rock bottom for him.

He doesn’t forget about his soulmates, he _can’t_ forget about them, but he doesn’t think about them either.

He makes it through another summer, then the fall, and then his parents die and there’s no one by his side to pull him out when he spirals.

Tony kinda wishes he’d been in that car with them.

He turns to Obie—Obadiah Stane—for support. He steps back from his da—his company and lets Obie take control while he buries himself in inventing, parties, and anybody who will even look his way.

One day, Tony wakes up and he realizes that he hasn’t really talked to anyone outside of the company in almost eighteen months. Pepper, his newest secretary, has been a godsend, keeping Tony afloat through everything—but he needs something better, something guaranteed to keep him grounded.

He needs his Rhodey back.

***

Tony doesn’t know how to apologize. Growing up, whenever he’d done something wrong Howard had just yelled at him, and that had been it. They’d move on, and Tony would learn to never make the mistake again.

He almost wishes Rhodey would just yell at him so they could move on.

But no: Tony needs to apologize, needs to make this right.

He’s knee deep in a pile of scrap metal when he gets his chance.

“Pepper,” he greets, answering the call from the woman who is quickly becoming one of Tony’s best friends. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”

“The military is appointing you a liaison for the newest weapons contract,” Pepper responds. They’ve talked about Rhodey and how Tony had fucked up before (not that Tony really remembers telling her, but he knows that Pepper knows). “Do you have an—”

“James Rhodes,” Tony says quickly, breathlessly. “I will only work with James Rhodes.”

This, it turns out, is exactly what Tony needs to start doing his job again. Especially when Rhodey accepts the position.

Tony steps back into the limelight: he cleans up his act (though the media doesn’t seem to believe him, but that’s okay), he cuts back on the alcohol (but he doesn’t stop altogether), and he quits the drugs, refusing to take even ibuprofen if he can help it.

He’s not perfect, but he is trying.

The first time he sees Rhodey, he has a panic attack. It’s the first official meeting with Rhodey as the Military Liaison to Stark Industries, and while Tony doesn’t have to talk to Rhodey, he still runs from the room at his first chance.

Like an idiot.

The second time he sees Rhodey it goes better. He says hi and gets a nod back. He breathes deeply and doesn’t lose any time trying to get his senses back. He walks calmly from the room.

The next morning he gets a text.

 **Platypus:** can we talk? 1815 tonight Tri-City Pub? **Received 6:09 am**

Tony will deny to his dying breath that a single text ever made him cry.

 _ **Me:** _absolutely _ **Sent 6:10 am**_

The pub is a quiet place in New York that Tony and Rhodey used to visit on their trips up from college. The food there is to die for and Tony appreciates that no one makes a big deal over him: they don’t care that Tony is the CEO of a multi-million dollar company as long as he pays and doesn’t start a fight.

Tony gets there at six and quickly claims their booth in the back. He orders a soda from the waitress and has to pinch himself to keep from ordering something harder to go with it. The fifteen minutes he spends waiting for Rhodey are the longest minutes of his life and he doesn’t even think he’s exaggerating this time.

His drink comes before Rhodey does. Tony takes a sip of it then rests his head on the slightly sticky table, just trying to breathe.

“Tony,” Rhodey says, startling the man.

“Rhodey,” Tony breaths, and he knows he’s got tears in his eyes but he really doesn’t care.

Rhodey has filled out a lot in the nearly two years Tony hasn’t seen him. At twenty-five, Rhodey has come into his own. He’s strong with broad shoulders and a no-nonsense expression that Tony can really appreciate.

“How’ve you been?” Rhodey asks as he slips into the booth.

“I’ve been worse, I’ve been better,” Tony replies honestly. He feels like he needs to say something, to apologize, before Rhodey realizes what a mistake asking to talk to Tony has been. “I’m so fucking sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Rhodey says, which surprises Tony more than he’d like to admit. “What you did was shitty, man, and if this is gonna work then you can’t do anything like that again.”

“Of course, Rhodey. I was stupid,” Tony agrees. He would agree to anything if it kept Rhodey in his life. “Can I at least tell you why I was stupid so that someday, when we’ve both healed from this or whatever, you have more to laugh at me about?”

“Yeah, whatever,” Rhodey mutters, but he’s smiling, and that’s all Tony needs to know that everything is going to be just fine.

***

And things are—fine, that is. For the next two years, Tony and Pepper and Rhodey grow closer as friends, and between the three of them, Stark Industries jumps from a multi-million dollar company to a multi-billion dollar company.

Tony stops drinking, too. He drops the party act and he takes over the company reins in full force. Obie is still on the board—Tony has no power over that—but the man is no longer in control.

Which is, of course, when Tony gets kidnapped by the Ten Rings.

In 2001—right after the bombing of the World Trade Center— Tony gets the idea to build a missile strong enough to deter any enemy. It’s not until 2003 that it’s ready for a demo. He personally oversees it, flying with Rhodey to Afghanistan and giving a speech that will convince the people who need convincing that the Jericho missile is a good idea.

From there, they’re on the way to a tour of the closest base (not that Tony really needs a tour) when the convoy is hit by enemy fire. The first humvee goes up in flames and Tony’s heart starts to race: while he may deal in military weapons, he is in no way a military man.

He’s in a humvee with three military personnel, all as young as him or younger, and all ready to defend and die for the civilian. Rhodey is in the one behind him, and Tony knows that his best friend won’t make it in time when the bomb lands a few feet from him.

The last thing Tony thinks about before the bomb goes off is that maybe now he will be lucky enough to finally meet his soulmates.

***

When Tony wakes up, all he knows is pain. His chest aches, his back aches, _every part_ of him aches—and at least Tony knows that if he’s dead then he’s in hell. If he’s alive, maybe he’s in hell, too.

“Fuck,” Tony groans when he tries to roll onto his side. There’s something hooked up to his chest and Tony wants to rip it out, to give his lungs room to breathe.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” a voice calls from the other side of the room. Tony opens his eyes to find himself staring at a rock ceiling. “Saved your life though, with the battery.”

His eyes widen and Tony looks down at the hole in his chest with growing horror. He follows the wire to the car battery and then throws up. Thankfully he has the sense to turn away from the battery.

“I removed all the shrapnel I could,” the man says after he hands Tony a dirty rag to clean up with. “But there's a lot left, and it's headed into your atrial septum. Here, want to see?” The man holds up a bottle with shards of metal inside. “I have a souvenir.”

Tony doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t think he can say anything, but the man doesn’t seem to mind.

“I've seen many wounds like that in my village. We call them the walking dead because it takes about a week for the barbs to reach the vital organs,” the man continues.

“What is this?” Tony finally manages, gesturing to the mess that had once been his chest.

“That is an electromagnet, hooked up to a car battery, and it's keeping the shrapnel from entering your heart.”

Tony looks up to see a camera and grimaces. The man follows his gaze and smiles thinly.

“That’s right, smile.”

Tony doesn’t think he’ll ever smile as long as he’s in this place.

***

The man gives Tony space to clean up and maybe even process the situation he’s landed himself in. Moving hurts: it pulls at the wires and the hole in his chest burns. Tony will be surprised if he’s ever able to take a full breath again.

“We met once, you know—at a technical conference in Bern,” the man states cordially, like they’re having a conversation in Central Park and not in a cave.

“I don't remember,” Tony replies, because he had just lost Rhodey when he’d gone to Bern, just found out his soulmates were dead, and he doesn’t remember much of anything he’d done that year.

“No, you wouldn't,” the man agrees. “If I had been that drunk, I wouldn't have been able to stand, much less give a lecture on integrated circuits.”

Shame is a feeling Tony is well accustomed to and he hates that he’s feeling it right now. He regrets his actions, truly, he does, but he was a different man, and he wishes people would stop bringing them up.

“Where are we?” Tony asks instead, needing to change the subject.

The man doesn’t get the chance to respond when there’s shouting and men dressed in dirty tan clothes with guns waving everywhere running into the room. Tony wants to hide, but he knows he can’t. With men like these, hiding never ends well.

Tony stands when the man tells him to. He listens, though he doesn’t understand the words, and he refuses to do what they say.

Tony saw his name on that bomb. He doesn’t know how, but his weapons have fallen into the wrong hands, and Tony refuses to make more until he clears that up.

“I refuse,” Tony says again, just as calm as he had before, despite his racing heart.

***

Water is all Tony knows. He’s forcefully dunked into the tub of muddy water over and over and over until his lungs are burning like a fire and his ears ring to the peal of a thousand bells.

He wonders if he’ll survive.

***

Outside the cave, the sun is blindingly harsh. Tony’s eyes sting as the wind rips through the group of men. His hands are bound; even if he wanted to run, Tony knows he wouldn’t make it more than five paces before he’s put down like a rabid dog.

“He wants to know what you think,” the man translates. Tony really should ask his name, considering he’s the sole reason Tony is still alive.

“I think you’ve got a lot of my weapons,” Tony says and he knows that both he and Stark Industries will never make another weapon again as long as he’s alive. He’ll do what he can to stop this mess that his own neglectful hands have created.

“He says they have everything you need to build the Jericho missile,” the man’s voice wavers and Tony thinks he understands why. The Jericho in the hands of these monsters would have devastating power. The Jericho in the hands of anyone would be disastrous. “He wants you to make the list of materials. He says for you to start working immediately, and when you're done, he will set you free.”

“No he won’t,” Tony says—he knows how these things work, just like they’ve worked every time he’s been kidnapped. And just like then, Tony will do everything in his power to escape.

“No they won’t,” the man agrees.

***

Pain is all he knows as they carve into his back with a thin whip.

He wonders if he’ll meet his soulmates soon.

***

“I'm sure they're looking for you, Stark,” the man whispers harshly. “But they will never find you in these mountains. Look, what you just saw, that is your legacy, Stark. Your life's work, in the hands of those murderers. Is that how you want to go out? Is this the last act of defiance of the great Tony Stark? Or are you going to do something about it?”

Tony knows a thing or two about legacies. He’d inherited a fortune five-hundred company and had built on that, creating an empire by the age of twenty-four. He knows that he can turn his legacy around if he puts his mind to it. He knows that he doesn’t need this man to guilt him into it when his guilt is already enough to drown a man more effectively than his kidnappers have tried to drown him.

“Why should I do anything? They're going to kill me, you, either way. And if they don't,” Tony gestures to his chest, “I'll probably be dead in a week.”

“Then this is a very important week for you.”

****

“What do I call you?” Tony asks. The man has his hands in Tony’s chest and he’s been here nearly a month now and he still doesn’t know his name. They haven’t talked much, Tony being too focused on his task as he revolutionizes the future from inside a cave. Unless he’s eating or sleeping, rare as those moments are, Tony’s hands are warping metal and his mind is flying at a thousand miles a minute.

“My name is Yinsen,” The man says, as if he was just waiting for Tony to ask.

The mini arc reactor is slotted into place and Tony feels like maybe he and Yinsen are going to be just fine.

****

“You still haven't told me where you're from,” Tony remarks one day, when he’s only a few good days into having the arc reactor and not nearly close enough to getting them out.

“I'm from a small town called Gulmira,” Yinsen says, holdin the metal Tony is working steady, trusting the genius to not smash his fingers. “It's actually a nice place.”

“Got a family?” He asks after a few minutes. He’s been thinking about his family a lot lately as he tries—and he tries so hard—to survive.

“Yes, and I will see them when I leave here,” Yinsen responds, and the phrasing of it sounds off, but Tony doesn’t question it when Yinsen continues. “And you, Stark?”

“No,” Tony mutters after a second, because his soulmates are dead and he needs to protect Rhodey, Happy, and Pepper at all costs.

“No?” Yinsens nods. “So you're a man who has everything and nothing.”

And... yeah, that sounds about right.

***

Tony makes it out. He makes it out, but Yinsen doesn’t—was never even planning to. Yinsen’s family is as dead as Tony’s and he takes a second to grieve for the man, for his suffering, before he’s flying away from a place so horrible Tony has no choice but to burn it to the ground as he escapes in a glorified tin can.

_Don't waste it. Don't waste your life._

Tony makes it out and the suit falls apart immediately upon landing. He doesn’t see how he’s going to survive this, walking through the desert with multiple burns, a fractured wrist, and dehydration, but he can’t stop.

He also can’t stop thinking about his soulmates. He wonders what they would’ve been like, if they’d be proud of him for surviving or if they’d think he should’ve just let the Ten Rings drown him to make up for the shit he’s done, the shit he’s let happen.

_Don't waste it. Don't waste your life._

The soles of his feet burn, the top of his head burns—Tony’s pretty sure, nearly one-hundred percent sure, he’s hallucinating when he hears the sounds of a chopper approaching from ahead of him.

And, _oh_ , that’s real. Tony falls to his knees as the sand whips up around him. He’s about ten seconds from passing out when he sees his Rhodey, his platypus, running his way.

“Next time,” Rhodey says, his voice fading in and out as Tony tries to stay awake. “You’re coming with me.”

***

Pain is all Tony can feel and for a brief moment, he’s back in the cave, just trying to survive. He’s not laying in a bed on a medical evac chopper. He’s not listening to Rhodey recount everything Tony’s missed in the last three months—and, god, he cannot believe he’d only been there for three months.

The middle of his chest stings and Tony’s sure it’s infected again. His eyes are watering even though they’re closed. He can feel how dry and burnt his skin is.

“I know you’re awake,” Rhodey accuses gently. “You don’t need to open your eyes but I would like to know you’re mentally here, at least.”

“Lemme sleep,” Tony whines. He hasn’t slept enough in the past three months, nightmares keeping him awake and fear keeping him from even trying. “You’re too loud, Platypus.”

“Glad to have you back, Tones,” Rhodey says, and then Tony’s sleeping again.

***

Tony has never been so happy to see Pepper. He loves Pepper, she’s one of his three best friends, but he’s never loved her as much as he does right now. Happy, too. His security guard is standing right next to Pepper, looking for all the world like he wants to run forward and wrap Tony in bubble wrap.

“Are you kidding me with this?” Tony demands as he sees the gurney being wheeled towards him. He cannot, _will not_ , go to the hospital. He’d rather have Dum-E take care of him. “Get rid of that.”

He can hear Rhodey directing the medics away so he turns his attention back to his other friends. He can see Pepper’s red-rimmed eyes and the tired slump of Happy’s shoulders and he’s never felt more cared for and loved than he does right now and they haven’t even said anything.

“Your eyes are red,” Tony says to break the silence. “A few tears for your long-lost boss?”

“Tears of joy,” Pepper says, her voice wavering. “I hate job hunting.”

And then she’s hugging him and Tony is more than okay with that. One of the biggest things he had craved while in that cave was being touched without any pain accompanying it. He gestures for Happy to join them and doesn’t let go until his friends do.

“Where to now, sir?” Happy asks once the three of them are settled in the car, one of Tony’s more subtle vehicles. Rhodey is set to debrief with the military and Tony has half a mind to kidnap him and never let him go.

“The hospital, Happy,” Pepper tries, but Tony can’t do that. Hospitals remind him too much of losing Howard and Maria, of being the one to identify their bodies. He just can’t.

“No.”

“No?” Pepper repeats incredulously. “Tony, you have to go to the hospital.”

“No is a complete answer.”

“The doctor has to look at you.”

“I don't have to do anything,” Tony says loud enough that Pepper actually listens to him. “I've been in captivity for three months. There are two things I want to do. I want an American cheeseburger, and the other—”

“That's enough of that,” Pepper begins, but Tony needs to do this.

“—is not what you think. I want you to call for a press conference now.”

***

“I’m shutting down the weapons manufacturing division of Stark International,” Tony says, staring out at the press and pretending this is not a pivotal point in his life, in everyone’s lives, “effective immediately.”

***

Tony knew that Obie would not be happy with his decision. He knew the man wouldn’t be able to see things the way Tony sees them, but he never expected the man to betray him the way that he does.

He watches Stane walk away, tossing Tony’s heart between his greasy hands like he didn’t just rip it from his chest.

Tony tries to stop him but he can’t move, he can’t call out for help, he can’t breathe.

His head feels like it’s full of cotton but eventually, he remembers the reactor that Pepper had gifted him, the one sitting in a glass case in his lab, collecting dust and apparently waiting for a moment just like this.

Proof that Tony Stark has a heart.

He slowly, ever so slowly, gains feeling in his limbs and starts to crawl, to scrap his fingers on the ground until they bleed. He tumbles down the stairs and keeps moving, despite the pain, despite the anger and betrayal. He barely manages to knock the reactor to the ground when he hears someone shouting behind him. Rhodey, he thinks.

“Tony,” Rhodey gasps out as he falls to his knees next to Tony. He fumbles for the reactor and suddenly Tony can breathe again. He can breathe again, and he wants to celebrate, but he can’t because Stane is still out there and Pepper is in danger.

“Pepper,” Tony says even as he stumbles towards his suit. “Rhodey, you have to get Pepper.”

“Okay,” Rhodey instantly agrees and Tony loves him for it. “Okay. Stay safe, Tones. We only just got you back.”

Tony nods—and then the helmet fits into place and he’s off to save the world.

****

“Do you remember,” Tony says over the comms as he lets off another blast at Stane. “Pepper, do you remember when I told you about my soulmates?”

“Tony, don’t,” Pepper warns like she knows what he’s thinking.

“How I don’t even know who they are,” Tony continues even though he knows this is not the best time (he could always tell her after). “Because they’re dead. And how I used to wish, more than anything, that it could’ve been you and Rhodey. How maybe, in a different universe, it was you and Rhodey?”

“Tony,” Pepper sobs. “Please stop.”

Tony and Stane are fighting on the roof of Stark International, right above the arc reactor, the one his dad had built, the one that was just for show. Tony feels battered and bruised and two steps from death’s door. Stane doesn’t seem to be faring much better.

“Pepper, I love you. I love Rhodey and Happy, too,” Tony tells her now because he knows what she has to do next. “Push the button.”

“You told me not to!” Pepper shouts even as she sobs.

“Yeah, well,” Tony says and he closes his eyes briefly, maybe for the last time. “There’s been a change in plans.”

He can hear the sound of the reactor overheating. He hopes Rhodey has enough time to get Pepper out of the building before the reactor blows.

He hopes he gets to meet his soulmates now.

He kinda feels like he deserves it.


	3. Tony Stark is Not a Fan of Time Travel

“Mistah,” a boy (at least he thinks the voice might belong to a boy) says next to him. Tony thinks he can feel pressure on his shoulder, but he’s not sure he’s actually feeling his body right now. “Mistah, are you alive?” 

“No,” Tony says—groans really—as he tries to open his eyes, to move his body. The kid giggles. 

When he does manage to open them, he sees what is definitely a girl sitting cross-legged by his head. She’s regarding him curiously but doesn’t seem afraid. It takes Tony a moment longer to realize that he can’t move his body because he’s still in his suit. 

“What’s yer name?” The girl asks, leaning over Tony and blocking out the sun. “My name is Rebecca but my friends call me Becca.” 

“Anthony,” Tony manages to get out after nearly a minute of coughing. A minute of trying to remember his name because his head is pounding like he’s back to drinking again, even though he doesn’t keep alcohol in the mansion anymore. “Becca, could you help me reach that latch by my neck?” 

The girl does as asked and Tony sighs in relief as the suit collapses around him. He feels like a giant bruise, but at least he’s not a giant bruise encased in metal anymore. 

“Yer dressed funny,” Becca giggles. Tony looks down to see that he’s still in battered jeans and a holey t-shirt and he wonders where he is, that jeans and a t-shirt are funny. 

“Where’m I?” 

“Brooklyn,” Becca responds cheerfully. Tony coughs again and Becca sobers instantly. “I know a boy who coughs like that. My brother says he’s sick. Are you sick, Mistah Anthony?” 

“Maybe,” Tony says after a rattling breath. “I feel like I shouldn’t be alive.” 

“Oh,” Becca gasps, and then there are tears running down her cheeks and Tony feels like a complete ass. He watches, though, in fascination, as Becca stands up with a fierce determination on her tiny face. “Stay here.” 

Tony listens, but only because he doesn’t think he can move without throwing up. 

*** 

“Holy heck,” a new voice says eventually. Tony stopped keeping track of how long Becca had been gone for. “Becca, you wasn’t kiddin’ when you said he was a mess.” 

“I told ya, Buck,” Becca says, kneeling next to Tony and gently patting his cheek. She turns back to eye Buck. “You think Sarah can help him?” 

“I’m sure she can try,” Buck agrees after a moment. “But I don’t think I can move him on my own.” 

“Suit,” Tony grumbles, because if they’re moving him they can’t leave the suit. 

Buck leans over him and—holy  _ shit, _ the man is beautiful, steel gray eyes and a jawbone to die for—examines the dented metal pieces around Tony. 

“Is that a robot?” Buck asks, and Tony can see childish glee in his eyes even as the man schools his expression into something more serious. “Nevermind, we can talk about that later. Yeah, we’ll take your suit, too.”

***

It takes Buck and three other men to drag Tony the two blocks to an apartment building. He’s carried up the stairs and then his suit is carried up as well. Tony doesn’t relax until he’s on an old, worn down couch and the suit is lying against the wall only five feet away. 

“Now, Anthony,” Buck begins when the others are gone, “Sarah’s not home for another hour, but between Becca ‘nd I, we know enough to get ya fed at least.” 

“Water?” Tony asks because he needs that more than anything. He’d just finished fighting his godfather in Malibu and somehow ended up in Brooklyn. He was thirsty.

Becca is off like a shot. She comes back cradling a glass of water carefully in her hands. Buck helps Tony sit up and guides the water to his lips. Tony drinks carefully, leaning back into Buck’s warmth when he’s had enough. 

“Where’s Stevie?” Becca asks after a moment, looking around the empty apartment as though someone else should be there. “He out tryin’ ta be dumb again?” 

“He ain’t gotta try, Bec,” Buck says with a playful grin. “He takes all the dumb with him. ‘Sides, he’s at The Tea Maker’s. It’s his turn to find out who his soulmate is.” 

“Don’t ya got two?” Becca asks, excitement clear in the way she bounces from foot to foot. “What if Stevie gets two, too?” 

“Then he’ll have two people to keep him out of trouble,” Buck grins. “‘Sides, you know one of his soulmates is me. Found that out on my birthday.” 

“Do you have a soulmate, Mistah Anthony?” Becca asks innocently, not knowing that she’s poking old wounds. 

“Nah,” Tony says carefully. He shifts on the couch so he can see her easily, groaning as his… everything protests the movement. “Miss Maker told me mine were dead.” 

“Oh no,” Becca says, hand covering her mouth. Tony instantly feels guilty for making her cry twice in the short amount of time he’s known the kid. “Oh, Mistah Anthony, that’s terrible.” 

Tony shrugs like it’s not the most painful aspect of his life. He wants to comfort Becca, but he doesn’t feel like it’s his place. He also isn’t sure how to comfort someone else when the pain feels so fresh, even years later.

“Becca,” Buck says, placing a gentle hand on the girl’s shoulder. “Why don’t you go get Mistah Anthony something to eat?” 

Becca nods and goes in the direction of what Tony assumes is the kitchen. Tony looks at Buck gratefully, to which the man nods back.

“Muh name is James Barnes, but my friends call me Bucky. Becca there is my sister and this is my friend Steve Rogers’ place. His mama is a nurse so we’re thinking she can help you when she gets home.” Bucky slides to the floor next to Tony, gently lowering Tony back onto the couch. “How’d you get beat up like that?” 

“Fought a robot,” Tony says casually, watching with mild amusement as Bucky’s eyes widen. 

“Yer kidding me?” Bucky cries. “Seriously?” 

“Mhmm,” Tony says with a painful grin; he didn’t even notice his lips were cracked until just now. “Fought him and won.” 

“That’s like something out of a dime novel,” Bucky whispers in awe. “Are you a superhero?” 

“Not without that, I’m not,” Tony says, pointing to his suit. “That thing makes me Iron Man.” 

“Are you military?” Bucky asks, not looking away from the suit. “Harold told me the military was gettin’ cool tech the other day.” 

“Not military,” Tony says. “Just a man in a tin can.” 

Bucky looks back at him. “Surely you’re more than that.” 

Tony shakes his head as much as he can and looks away from Bucky. “Not really.” 

*** 

Tony is in and out of consciousness as the siblings talk around him. He isn’t sure how much time passes before there’s a soft, warm hand resting on his forehead. 

“He should be in a hospital,” a woman says. Tony reaches out lightning fast to grab her wrist. 

“No,” Tony begs, because he knows he absolutely cannot. “No hospital.” 

“I’m not sure how much I can help you,” the woman says apologetically. “You really should get medical treatment.” 

Tony shakes his head, holding the woman’s wrist until she reluctantly nods. When Tony lets go she steps back and leaves the room. He looks around to see Becca asleep, curled up by his armor, and Bucky leaning against the foot of the couch, staring up at Tony. 

“Sarah’s right, y’know.” 

“Can’t,” Tony says; he’s got a hunk of metal in his chest keeping him alive and he would honestly rather die than let some random doctor look at it. “I’m… fine.” 

Bucky shakes his head, but doesn’t argue, and for that Tony is grateful. He’s not sure he can talk anymore as he slips back into the comfort of nothingness. 

*** 

He wakes this time to shouting. Tony doesn’t feel good, per se, but he does feel better than he did last time he was awake. 

“Why the hell’d you let a stranger in my apartment?” an unfamiliar voice yells. Tony can hear the telltale rattle of shitty lungs. A sound he’s known intimately since the… since the arc reactor. 

“Cause he needed help, Stevie,” Bucky responds harshly. “What would you have me do? Leave him there to die? Cause that don’t sound like you, Stevie, so you best tell me what’s really going on.” 

“It’s nothing, Buck,” Stevie says, and it’s so obviously a lie that even Tony can smell the BS in his half-awake state. 

“You’re a shit liar and ya know it,” Bucky calls him out. Tony can hear them sit down somewhere in the living room and he really wishes he could tell them that he’s awake but he honestly doesn’t think he can move his pinky, let alone his mouth. “What’s wrong, punk?” 

“Jerk,” Stevie replies, like it’s an automatic response. “It’s just... when I saw The Tea Maker today, she said that I’d already met one soulmate. Which is obviously you. She also said I’d meet my other soulmate for the first time today, and I just… I think it’s him, Buck. I think he’s it.” 

“Holy hell,” Bucky says like he’s just coming to some realization. “It’s 1943, ain’t it?” 

“Of course it is,” Stevie snorts. “And it’s my birthday, you ass. The Tea Maker, she—she said our soulmate is named Anthony Edward Stark.” 

“Stark?” Bucky repeats. “Wait? Like Howard Stark? Do you think they’re related?” 

Tony doesn’t hear the response; suddenly a lot of things connect and he can’t process any of it. 

Clearly, this is a fever dream. 

There is  _ no fucking way _ Tony is in the 1940s. 

*** 

Sarah Rogers is a godsend. She doesn’t say anything about a hospital after that first night and continues to care for Tony like he’s not the worst patient in the world. He tries to keep his complaints to a minimum because she really doesn’t have to do this for him. 

Steve doesn’t talk to Tony, though Tony isn’t sure why. Bucky isn’t there the whole time, busy with work down on the docks, but Becca visits every day after she’s done with school. Tony appreciates it: she’s a smart kid and he likes talking to her. 

“That looks way too easy for you,” Tony says one day when he can stand and walk to the table by himself. His chest still aches but his legs no longer feel like jelly. “You’re, what, fourteen? Why’re you still on basic math?” 

“That’s all girls are allowed to do,” Becca seethes. “It’s dumb.” 

“I’ll teach you,” Tony offers before he can think it all the way through. “I mean, I’ve never taught anyone, but I’m sure it can’t be that hard. I did create an arc reactor in a cave.” 

“What’s an arc reactor?” Becca asks. Tony still takes a moment to realize he’d said it out loud. 

“It’s a thing,” Tony starts, because he doesn’t know how to explain this to someone who’s still learning long division. “That creates a lot of energy. And it’s keeping me alive.” 

“What?” Becca shouts, standing from the table. “Can I see it?” 

Tony nods and starts to lift up his shirt when suddenly all five foot four of Steve Rogers is trying to push him away. 

“The hell ya doing to Becca?” Steve demands harshly. 

Tony sighs, because while it’s been clear the whole time that Steve doesn’t trust him, doesn’t even  _ want _ to trust him, Tony can’t help but find this ridiculous. Tony’s been there for weeks now and he’s not once hurt any of them.

“I’m showing her my arc reactor,” Tony says with a smirk, watching as a look of pure horror and disgust grows on Steve’s face. Messing with Steve might just be his favorite pastime. 

“It’s keeping him alive,” Becca pipes up from behind Steve, rolling her eyes when Tony meets them. “It’s definitely not what you’re thinking, Steve.” 

“Oh,” Steve says, but he doesn’t back down. Tony finds the blush on his usually pale cheeks endearing. 

Tony rolls his eyes and steps back to pull off his shirt in a quick movement. So far, Sarah is the only person besides Pepper to touch the reactor, the only one to see it besides Pepper, Rhodey, and Stane, and Tony can’t help but wince as he looks down at the hideous scarring. 

“What the hell,” Steve says, reaching towards the reactor but not touching when Tony flinches back. “How’d you get that?” 

Steve looks up with awe written clearly in his eyes, and Tony does not deserve that. He doesn’t deserve any of this or any of them. 

“I made it. With my hands,” Tony says flatly. “In a cave, to fill a hole in my chest left by a bomb.” 

“Are you in the Army?” Steve asks suddenly, looking up at Tony harshly. He wonders if there’s something wrong with being in the Army? First Bucky, and now Steve have demanded to know if he was military. 

“Just an unlucky civilian,” Tony says with a shrug, pulling his shirt back on. “Promise you won’t tell anyone about this?” 

“I promise, Mistah Anthony,” Becca says with a grin. 

“Promise,” Steve agrees when Becca elbows him. Steve looks up from Tony’s chest and meets his eyes. Tony knows that the determination he sees is a really, really bad sign. 

***

“Your beard’s gone,” Bucky notes when he walks in the door one evening. He’s wearing his work clothes; a pair of jeans, a white button up, and suspenders. Tony likes the look on him. 

“It was getting hard to maintain,” Tony admits with a shrug, running his hand over his smooth chin. “I kinda feel naked without it.” 

Bucky’s eyes rove his body, sending a shiver down Tony’s spine as he watches an appreciative smirk grow on the man’s lips. 

“I like it.” 

“Thanks,” Tony says, looking down at his hands to avoid having to look at Bucky. He can take the staring and the flirting and everything else—in fact, he enjoys it—but today it feels like too much. 

“Hey,” Bucky says softly, setting down his coat and sitting next to Tony on the couch. “What’s wrong?” 

“It’s been over a month since you and Becca found me,” Tony says after a moment. “And I guess it’s just now hitting me that I’m not going home.” 

“You know you don’t have to stay. Please tell me you know that?” Bucky says urgently. “We like having you here, don’t get me wrong. Even Stevie likes you, though he is a stubborn ass about it.” 

Tony chuckles at Bucky’s panic before patting him gently on the leg. “It’s not that I don’t want to go home, Bucky. It’s that I can’t.” 

“What can we do to help?” 

“I don’t know,” Tony says with a shrug. He stands up and stretches his arms above his head, grumbling under his breath. “Unless you got a time machine, I’m stuck here.” 

“What?” 

“Nothing Buck,” Tony says with a small, sad smile. “It’s nothing.” 

***

“I’m not going,” Tony says, slumping further into the couch. He can feel his heart racing at just the thought of being in the same place as Howard Stark. “And that’s final.” 

“But it’s my last night,” Bucky argues, sitting next to Tony but not touching him. “Spend it with me?” He gestures to Steve waiting impatiently by the door. “With us?” 

“Really not a good idea,” Tony says. 

“And why not?” Steve demands. 

“It just isn’t, okay?” Tony snaps because Steve manages to get on his nerves even when he’s not talking. 

“Tony,” Bucky says and Tony hates that tone of voice, the tone that says Bucky’s heart is breaking and Tony knows that if he looks up he’s going to see pouting lips and wide eyes. 

He looks up. 

Shit. 

“Fine,” Tony aqueisecses sullenly. “But only if Stevie here promises to not get into any trouble.” 

“Like that’s going to happen,” Bucky snorts, but he sounds happy and that’s all Tony needs, really. 

*** 

Tony Stark is going to murder Steve Rogers. 

When they’d arrived at the Expo, Bucky had been enthralled by the frankly outrageous display of technology. Tony was a lot more invested than he’d thought he would be, surrounded by machines that were now obsolete. He still enjoys explaining to Bucky how they work. 

Sometime between showing Bucky the blueprint for what would become the modern telephone and the spectacle of the flying car, they’d lost Steve. 

“I don’t want you to miss this,” Tony says quietly. “I’ll look for him.” 

“You don’t gotta do that, doll,” Bucky says sweetly. Tony tries to will away his blush. “He may be an idiot, but he’s my idiot, too.” 

Tony refuses to even acknowledge that phrasing. 

“It’s fine, Buck. I got this,” Tony says—and then he does the dumbest thing in his life and kisses Bucky on the cheek before taking off to find Steve  _ fucking _ Rogers. 

Tony tears through the venue, looking between and behind booths, before he comes up on an Army recruitment booth and curses. 

Of-fucking-course. 

Tony knows who Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes are. He’d connected the dots, and while he doesn’t like to—hates to—think about it, he knows that Steve Rogers is going to become Captain America and his soulmate, Bucky Barnes, is going to die falling from a train somewhere in the Alps. 

“Steve,” Tony says, placing a hand on the smaller man’s shoulders, watching as Steve tries to make himself taller so he can fill out the reflection on the wall. “What’re you doing?” 

“Nothing,” Steve says and Tony knows the man is a terrible liar, but this attempt is just pathetic. 

“You know it’s illegal to lie on your enlistment forms,” Tony whispers softly as he glances around the recruitment center. 

“Look, I know you don’t think I can do this,” Steve snaps, getting defensive, as he always does with Tony. 

“I didn’t say that,” Tony retorts, startling Steve. “I’m just saying you oughta be careful.” 

“There are men laying down their lives,” Steve says, and it sounds like he’s had this speech prepared for ages, which he probably has. “I got no right to do any less than them. That’s what you don’t understand. This isn’t about me.” 

“You’re an idiot, you know that, right?” Tony says. Steve bristles but Tony continues before he can say anything. “I’m gonna go grab Bucky before he gets lost in the crowd.” 

“What, so he can convince me not to?” Steve asks sullenly. 

“No, so you can say goodbye, asshole,” Tony hisses. “He’s your soulmate and he ships out in the morning.” 

“Shit, I’m an idiot,” Steve groans and,  _ yeah _ , Tony agrees wholeheartedly. 

*** 

“Your soulmate is an idiot,” Tony suddenly declares from right behind Bucky. The man doesn’t startle, really, but he does turn rapidly to Tony, a grin slowly expanding on his perfect lips. 

“What’d he do this time?” Bucky asks, stepping closer to Tony with a smirk. 

“One guess,” Tony says, pointing up at the recruitment poster staged center in the expo. “He’s gonna try again.” 

“I’m gonna kill him,” Bucky states and starts off towards Steve before Tony grabs his wrist. 

“Wait,” Tony says, dropping his hold when Bucky stops. “I know you’re worried about him, Buck, and I am, too, but he’s not going to stop.” 

Bucky’s shoulders slump and Tony isn’t sure he’s ever seen a man look so defeated. 

“I know,” Bucky says, turning back towards Tony with a worried frown. “And that’s what makes me worry so much. I won’t be here to watch his punk ass.” 

“It is a nice ass,” Tony says with a smirk. “I wouldn’t mind watching it for you.” 

“Really?” Bucky says slowly, a smile growing on his face. “You’d do that for me?” 

Tony feels, for a moment, like he’s walked into an elaborate trap. He can’t help but wince as Bucky wraps an arm around his shoulders, squeezing fiercely. 

“Knew I could count on ya, doll.” 

*** 

Tony stands off to the side, letting Bucky and Steve have their moment, before Steve goes off to make one more attempt at fulfilling his patriotic duty. He leans against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest as he watches the two.

“They’re quite the striking pair,” a man says from beside Tony, also watching as Steve calls Bucky an idiot with a watery grin on his face. “Seems like your friends have a lot of guts.” 

“He’s gonna get himself killed at this rate,” Tony replies, not taking his eyes off Steve and Bucky, savoring this last moment he’s going to have to watch the two of them together like this. Innocent to the pain of the future. “But he’s got a heart of gold and that’s what I admire about him.” 

“What do you think of the expo?” the man asks. Tony turns to face him at the sudden change in topic with a frown.

“It’s interesting,” Tony says, nodding towards where the action is still happening. “The science is nothing like I’m used to.” 

“Where’d you study?"

“Oxford,” Tony replies easily because it’s not wrong and he knows that he can’t have any ties to Howard. “Energy systems.” 

“Interesting,” the man muses. Tony looks up only to see him walking away. 

It’s not until he’s submitting his forged papers to enlist that he realizes the man he’d been talking to was Dr. Erskine.


	4. Tony Stark Does Not Belong In The Military

Tony is in no way a military man: he sucks at following orders, he’s not a team player, and he can barely take a full breath on a good day. He knows that when he promised Bucky to watch over Steve, the man had been thinking Tony would _stop_ him from joining the army, not for Tony to join _with_ him.

But the truth is, Earth _needs_ Captain America, and Tony isn’t about to be the reason Steve never becomes who he’s supposed to be.

Tony is, however, going to beat Steve’s ass the next time he sees him.

Getting to Camp Lehigh had been the easy part; getting onto Project Rebirth was proving to be much more difficult. But somehow, after weeks of well-placed questions and more push-ups than he cares to remember, Tony had managed to catch Aunt—Agent Peggy’s attention.

“Edward Carter?” Peggy calls out one evening when Tony is just sitting down for dinner in the mess hall. His chest twinges as he turns to look at the woman. Tony reaches up to rub at the arc reactor. “Is there an Edward Carter here?”

There are whispers spreading throughout the canteen, whispers of what Agent Carter, a fierce woman with a mean right hook, could possibly want with the likes of good old Eddie.

Then again, he’d also heard some of the boys saying he and Peggy were related, so there was that.

Peggy is looking right at Tony though, which is both thrilling and nerve-wracking. He knows that Peggy has no idea who he really is, but even still, having the woman watching him like this makes him feel a little left-footed.

“That would be me,” Tony says, grabbing the bread roll off his tray and shoving it in his mouth. He takes his time strolling to the entrance of the canteen and finishing his bread before saluting Peggy. “What can I do for ya, Agent Carter?”

“Your papers say you attended Oxford?” Carter asks, already briskly walking away, clearly intending for Tony to follow her, which he does. “Graduated top of your class with a degree in engineering?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Tony replies with a grin, giddy that he’s talking to a younger Aunt Peggy. “Focus was in energy systems and thermodynamics.”

“Perfect,” Peggy says with a smile. “We’ve come across a problem and your name came up as someone who might have a solution.”

“Wait?” Tony says, coming to a halt. “Who brought my name up?”

“Dr. Erskine himself,” Peggy tells him. “Says he knows you from Queens.”

Tony remembers his brief conversation with the man at the expo about Steve. Erskine shouldn’t even know his name.

“Yeah,” Tony agrees slowly, starting to walk again as his mind catches up with him. “Just didn’t think he’d remember me.”

Peggy nods, clearly understanding Tony’s problem. “He’s an interesting man, to say the least, but his heart is in the right place.”

“His work is brilliant,” Tony gushes before he can stop himself. “Well, what I know of it. I read one of his papers while I was at Oxford.”

And he’d read all of the notes that could be found after the man’s death, but he can’t tell Peggy that.

“Well, here we are,” Peggy says, guiding Tony into the office. “Dr. Erskine should be here in a moment.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” Tony says, sitting in one of the chairs as Peggy turns to leave. “Hey, Agent?”

“Yes, Mr. Carter?” Peggy says looking at Tony like he’d just said something odd..

“You wouldn’t happen to know a Steve Rogers, would you?” Tony asks tentatively, because he’s been trying to find even a mention of Steve, and it shouldn’t be that hard at a camp like this, but it almost feels like the man is avoiding him.

“Yes, I know Rogers,” Peggy says carefully.

Tony smiles at the woman. “I promised his soulmate I’d look after him.”

“So he does have a soulmate,” Peggy says, looking briefly disappointed. Tony can’t blame her, Steve Rogers just has that kind of charm. “I can tell him you’re looking for him, if you’d like?”

“Nah,” Tony says with a wave of his hand and a small smile. “It’s enough to know he’s here.”

She exits the room and Tony waits in silence for a few moments before the door opens again.

“Mr. Carter,” Erskine greets jovially when he enters the room. He looks a little worn out, but still happy to see Tony, which is odd. “How wonderful to see you.”

“Edward’s fine,” Tony says, shaking the man’s proffered hand. “Mr. Carter was my father.”

“Edward, then,” Erskine says, taking a seat across from Tony. “Straight to the point. I’ve hit a little hiccup on Project Rebirth and I need your help.”

“What’s Project Rebirth?” Tony asks, even though he knows exactly what Erskine is talking about.

Erskine smiles. “It’s the next step towards winning the war.”

“Well then,” Tony nods. “I’ll help however I can.”

***

Tony, it turns out, is a huge fucking idiot.

He knew, intellectually, that this was bound to happen at some point since he had planned on sticking close to Steve. But he still hadn’t mentally prepared himself enough for the fact that he was going to meet his _father_.

“Howard,” Erskine calls to the other man, who then turns from the machines to look at them. “Meet Edward Carter. He’s got experience with energy systems and I think he’s just the man to fix that Vita-Ray problem we’ve been having.”

“Mr. Stark,” Tony greets before his father—his father who is currently _younger than him_ —can say anything. “I was there for your expo. Loved your work with the robotic reversion technology, though it looked like your propulsion calculations were off by about a tenth in the negative direction.”

“Know something about reversion tech, huh?” Howard asks with a raised brow, though he does offer Tony his hand to shake.

“I know a little ‘bout a lot, Mr. Stark,” Tony grins. “Though I also know a lot about a lot.”

“Oh, no,” Peggy gasps from behind them. “They’ve both got an ego.”

“Dr. Erskine said something about a Vita-Ray?” Tony asks, turning back to Howard after grinning at Peggy. “Mind if I take a look?”

***

Tony knows Steve sees him even though the man doesn’t look up from where he’s panting against the wall.

“Edward Carter, huh?” Steve asks after Tony sits next to him. “Something you wanna tell me?”

“There are,” Tony begins evenly, “a lot of things about me I wish I could tell you, Steve, but there are also a lot of reasons why I _can’t_ say anything.”

“Bullshit,” Steve growls, finally turning to look at Tony. He feels a pang at how angry and hurt Steve looks. “What’s your real name?”

Tony looks around carefully before turning back to Steve. He can feel something like fear building in his chest because he _likes_ Steve, and Tony _can't_ lose him.

(Tony purposefully forces himself not to think about the Valkyrie.)

“Christ,” Steve mutters, starting to stand up. “Can’t believe I thought we were friends.”

“Wait,” Tony pleads, grabbing Steve’s thin wrist in a familiar movement. “Steve, please. I—I’m not—I don’t know how to explain who I am without you thinking I’m a freak and losing you. I can’t—” Tony swallows thickly. He can’t do this. He can’t tell Steve how he feels, how he’s terrified every moment that he’s going to fuck up and Steve is going hate him. “You’re all I’ve got, ya know? You and Bucky.”

“Tony,” Steve says with a sigh, sitting next to Tony. “Please, just... tell me?”

Tony looks at the dirt they’re sitting on instead of at Steve as he explains, willing Steve to understand, to not leave Tony alone in the past. He tells Steve of growing up in the eighties, going to MIT, meeting Rhodey. He tells him how he got the arc reactor, what he tried to make of it. How he’d failed, how he’d woken up in the forties and Becca and Bucky had saved his life.

He cries.

He cries; because it _hurts_ to explain how it feels to know that your soulmates are dead. He cries; because instead of leaving as Tony expects, Steve wraps his thin arms tightly around Tony.

He cries; because Steve stays.

***

“Steve,” Tony hisses when he walks past the barracks at two in the morning and hears the man coughing. He doesn’t usually go this way, but another sleepless night has him wandering where he can. “Stevie?”

He opens the door silently and tiptoes to where he knows Steve’s bed is. He doesn’t want to alert anyone else, and so he quietly shakes the man awake. Steve startles, sitting up and narrowly misses punching Tony in the face.

“Ton—Edward,” Steve groans tiredly. “What are you doing?”

“You were coughing,” Tony explains. He doesn’t tell Steve that he’d left his own bed after another nightmare and had found himself here, subconsciously seeking comfort. “Was worried you were going to hack up a lung.”

“It’s not your problem,” Steve hisses, flopping back onto the bed and turning away from Tony.

“The hell it ain’t,” Tony snaps harshly before lowering his voice. “Look, I get that you don’t like me. I don’t understand why, but I get it. That doesn’t mean that I don’t care about you, okay?”

“I miss Bucky,” Steve offers, and Tony sees it for the apology that it is. “I miss him and when you try to take care of me like this it makes me miss him more.”

Tony isn’t sure what he can say to that.

“I miss him, too,” Tony whispers eventually, hesitantly reaching out to grab Steve’s hand. “But we’ll see him again. I’m sure of it.”

Steve squeezes Tony’s hand and offers a small smile. They stay like that for a few minutes before Steve kisses Tony’s hand and then lets him go.

“I’ll see you later,” Steve murmurs, curling up in his blankets. When he falls back asleep, it’s with a peaceful look that has Tony’s heart racing.

***

After that, Tony sees Steve all the time.

Not because he plans it, really, but after helping Erskine and Howard with the Vita-Rays, Tony’s moved from training to helping in the science sector of the Strategic Scientific Reserve. Basically, Tony goes from doing hundreds of push-ups to helping move hundred-pound machinery.

Needless to say, Tony’s glad he gets to ride with Peggy instead of running like Steve does.

“Pick up the pace, ladies!” The Sergeant yells as the trainees run the three-mile loop for the second time that afternoon. “Let’s go! Double time! Come on! Faster! Faster! Move! Move!”

The humvee halts when they reach a flag pole and Tony turns to watch the scene curiously.

“Squad, halt!” Sergeant Buffy—Duffy? Truffy? It doesn’t really matter—shouts at the men. “That flag means we’re only at the halfway point. First man to bring it to me gets a ride back with Agent Carter and Private Carter. Move, move!”

The soldiers jump at the flagpole like zombies in an apocalypse movie, trying to climb over each other in their attempts to climb the pole. Tony sees Steve finally catch up with the group and waits with bated breath as Buffy tells the other recruits to keep moving.

“Rogers,” Buffy snaps when Steve doesn’t listen. “I said fall in!”

Instead, Steve steps up to the flagpole and removes the pin keeping it standing tall. It falls to the ground with a rattle and Steve snatches up the flag with a small smirk before handing it to the Sergeant with a quiet thanks.

“Nicely done,” Tony congratulates when Steve’s sitting next to him. “A true tactician at heart, aren’t ya?”

“You’re lucky you don’t hafta run twelve miles a day, Carter,” Steve grins once he catches his breath.

“Nah,” Tony replies with a smile and a wink. “I’m too pretty for that.”

Steve blushes brightly and the sight enthralls Tony. He wants to wrap Steve up when he gets like that and shield him from the world, from all the pain he knows is going to follow.

***

The black lines of palladium poisoning slowly expand. Whereas a week ago they had been barely noticeable, they’re now slowly crawling away from the reactor. He traces a line faintly and cringes at the feeling of the raised flesh.

His chest aches with every breath but Tony knows there’s nothing he can do to fix it, to save himself.

He’s not sure it’s even worth the effort. There’s no one here to miss him; there’s no mention of an Edward Carter anywhere in Captain America’s history. He’s sure that he’s meant to die here, where no one knows his name.

Tony slips another shirt on and leaves the bathroom. There’s nothing to be done.

***

“How old are you, Edward?” Peggy asks one day when they’re watching the recruits crawl through a mud trap.

“Twenty-five,” Tony says absently, distracted as he watches Steve slowly make his way through, enraptured by the beautiful determination on the man’s face even as Sergeant Duffy—he’d finally learned the man’s name after calling him Buffy to his face—yells at him.

“Little late to be enlisting,” Peggy hums. Tony turns to look at her. She’s got that look—the same one she’d had when Tony was thirteen and had kissed a boy for the first time—the look that tells Tony he’d better fess up or he’s in trouble.

“In case you hadn’t noticed, ma’am, I’m not the healthiest person in the world,” Tony hedges, because he can’t tell Peggy that he’s actually her godson from the future. Steve may have believed him, but he doubts Peggy would.

“Can’t be worse than Rogers,” Peggy quips, nodding to where Steve is red-faced and seconds from passing out.

“Still not healthy,” Tony says with a sigh. “I’d show you but I’m not sure it’s appropriate to show a superior something like this.”

“Let’s go inside,” Peggy says gently, leading Tony to the offices with a hand on his back. “You can show me as a friend, then.”

In Peggy’s office, Tony closes the blinds and takes a deep breath. It had been one thing to show the reactor to Becca and Steve; it’s another thing entirely to show it to Peggy, even though he trusts the woman with his whole being.

“Oh,” Peggy says, reaching out to touch the reactor. Tony shivers but he doesn’t back away from the touch. Her fingers feel cold against the scars. “What is this?”

“The thing that’s keeping me alive,” Tony says, looking at the way the blackened lines spiral towards his neck, towards his heart. “And the thing that’s killing me.”

There’s a gasp from the other side of the door and Tony turns to see Steve blinking his eyes and turning away. Tony slides his shirt down and, with a quick apology to Peggy, runs after him.

In a move he’s quickly becoming used to, Tony grabs Steve’s wrist and yanks him to a stop.

“Steve,” Tony pleads. “Shit, it’s not—”

“Why don’t you go back to Peggy, _Edward_ ,” Steve snaps, his voice scathing.

“She’s my aunt,” Tony tells him, louder than he should have, considering where they are, but when he looks around there’s blessedly no one in the corridor. Tony pulls Steve into an empty office and shuts the door. “In the future, Steve. Peggy Carter is my godmother and one of Howard’s best—only—friends.”

“She was touching it,” Steve says sadly, nodding at the reactor. Tony has a faint memory of flinching away from Steve trying to touch it and guilt spreads through him. He doesn’t have a chance to linger on it before Steve is looking at Tony in confusion. “Howard?”

“My father.”

“Howard is your father?”

“Yes, but that’s not important right now!”

“It seems pretty important to me,” Steve snaps but he gives up when Tony shakes his head vehemently. “Fine. What’s going on, Tony?”

“It’s killing me,” Tony says gently, lifting his shirt. “The thing that’s keeping me alive is killing me.”

“Tony,” Steve gasps and then he’s touching the reactor and it feels nothing like Tony expects.

Tony watches in fascination as Steve’s fingers trace the black lines of poison to where they stop an inch from the reactor. He shudders at the feeling of warm fingers and when Steve looks up he’s a lot closer than Tony expects him to be.

“Can you fix it?” Steve asks, eyes wide and pleading. There’s more emotion there than Tony knows what to do with. “Tony. Can you fix it?”

“I can try,” Tony promises. He doesn’t want to give Steve any false hope.

“What about Howard?” Steve asks imploringly. “Can he help?”

“I’ll ask,” Tony says because there’s nothing else he can do but agree. Not with the way Steve is looking at him with wide, watery eyes.

“Thank you,” Steve says, kissing Tony’s cheek, chapped lips lingering on the skin for just a moment before Steve casually walks out of the room, like he didn’t just flip Tony’s heart upside down.

***

“Faster, ladies!” Tony can hear Peggy shouting as he walks with Erskine and Colonel Phillips. “Come on. My grandmother has more life in her, God rest her soul. Move it!”

“You’re not really thinking about picking Rogers, are you?” Phillips demands, eyeing the men doing push ups. Steve can barely push off the ground.

“I am more than just thinking about it,” Erskine informs. “He is the clear choice.”

Phillips scoffs. “When you brought a ninety-pound asthmatic onto my Army base, I let it slide. I thought, what the hell? Maybe he’ll be useful to you, like a gerbil. I never thought you’d pick him. You stick a needle in that kid’s arm and it’s gonna go right through him.”

“Come on, girls,” Peggy croons as the recruits move on to doing jumping jacks.

“Look at that,” Phillips says, pointing out Steve’s poor form. “He’s making me cry.”

“I am looking for qualities beyond the physical,” Erskine explains.

“Do you know how long it took to set up this project?” Phillips hisses. “All the groveling I had to do in front of Senator What’s-His-Name’s committees?”

“Brandt,” Erskine offers. “Yes, I know. I am well aware of your efforts.”

“Then throw me a bone,” Phillips says. He points to Hodge who is executing perfect jumping jacks and barely looks tired. “Hodge passed every test we gave him. He’s big, he’s fast, he obeys orders. He’s a soldier.”

“He is a bully,” Tony and Erskine say at the same time. The two men look at Tony like they forgot he was with them. Which, honestly, isn’t that surprising.

“Watch this,” Tony says with a grin, reaching for a dummy grenade and tossing it towards the recruits. Tony smirks as he shouts, “Grenade!”

The men watch in fascination as Steve jumps on the grenade, yelling for everyone to get back. When the grenade doesn’t go off, he lifts his head to stare at where Tony stands with Erskine and Phillips. Tony can’t help but grin at the man, covered in dirt but still managing to be as attractive as ever.

“You win war with guts, Colonel, and I gotta say, Rogers has more guts than half these men combined.”

“Is this a test?” Steve asks when no one says anything.

Phillips turns to glare at Tony and Erskine before huffing. “He’s still skinny.”

***

“What was that?” Steve demands when he corners Tony later in the barracks. “Are you trying to kill me?”

“What? No?” Tony asks, confused. “If I was trying to kill you, you’d know, hotshot.”

“Then what was that?”

Tony grins. “That, my dear Stevie, was you proving to the good Colonel that you’ve got what it takes for Project Rebirth.”

“No way,” Steve says, sitting on one of the empty beds. “You’re kidding?”

“I wouldn’t kid about something like this, Steve,” Tony grins, sitting next to his friend. “You’re a good man, Steve. You’ve got a good heart, even if you’re the most bullheaded man I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting.”

“Hey,” Steve protests.

“Whatever happens, whatever the results of this are, Steve Rogers is a good man and there’s nothing anyone can say or do that changes that.”

“You know what’s going to happen,” Steve realizes suddenly. “You knew this already.”

Tony looks down at his hands and watches in horror as a tear lands on his thumb.

He hates this.

“What would you have me do?” Tony asks quietly. “I have so much knowledge, good, bad, and everything in between, and I don’t know how to fix this, or if I even _should_ fix this. Stevie? What should I do?”

Tony leans into Steve when arms wrap around him. He can feel Steve pressing a kiss to his hair and his tears turn into quiet sobbing.

“Stevie,” Tony hiccups, squeezing the man firmly. “I dont—I can’t. This is too much.”

“Tony,” Steve says firmly after a few minutes of gentle swaying. He places a finger under Tony’s chin and lifts until Tony looks at him. “I can’t say that I know what you’re going through. But I do know that it helps to talk to someone.”

“What if it changes things? What if it makes things worse?” Tony asks weakly.

“What if it makes things better?”

***

Tony is in the lab with all the scientists working on the project when Steve arrives. He helps Howard with the controls, making sure that they will hold steady as the serum does its job. Tony covers up the shaking of his hands by sticking them in his pockets.

When Peggy guides Steve into the room, Tony naturally steps in to take over for her. He loves Peggy, he really does, but this is something Tony has to do.

“Hey, Edward,” Steve says with a gentle smile as he follows Erskine’s order to take off his shirt. “It’s gonna be fine.”

“I should be the one saying that,” Tony smiles wryly, taking the shirt with shaking hands and setting it aside. “It’s gonna be fine, Steve.”

Steve nods and steps back with one last smile for Tony. He lays down on the table and Tony hovers next to the doctor hesitantly.

“Comfortable?” Erskine asks gently.

“Bit big,” Steve remarks but he looks otherwise calm. “You save me any of that schnapps?”

“Alright,” Tony claps his hands, stepping away from Steve and back to Howard as Erskine and Steve continue to talk. “Ready, Howie?”

“Don’t call me that,” Howard snaps, not for the first time. “Seriously, it feels weird when you do that.”

Tony grins and turns the knob in front of him to the correct setting.

“Howard, how are your levels?”

“One hundred percent,” Howard replies, grinning at Tony.

Tony can feel the energy thrumming through the room and it feeds his own, chasing away the nerves. What they’re about to attempt—succeed at—is revolutionary. Just one super soldier will have the ability to change the course of history. And if one can do that, then what can two or three super soldiers do? A whole army of young men ready to take on the world?

“Do you hear me? Is this thing on?” Dr. Erskine says, tapping on a microphone, wincing as it gives feedback before smiling in triumph when it works properly. “Ladies and gentlemen, today we take not another step towards annihilation, but the first step on the path to peace. We begin with a series of micro-injections into the subject’s major muscle groups. The serum infusion will cause immediate cellular change. And then, to stimulate growth, the subject will be saturated with Vita-Rays.”

“That wasn’t so bad,” Steve remarks with confusion after the first shot is administered.

“That was penicillin,” Erskine laughs. ”Serum infusion beginning in five, four, three, two, one.” Tony prepares the lever. “Now, Mr. Stark, Mr. Carter.” Howard turns the wheel as Tony pulls the lever down to turn the machine on. Steve is enclosed in the metal and lifted into an upright position. “Steven, can you hear me?”

“It’s probably too late to go to the bathroom, right?” Steve says because of course he does.

Erskine turns to Tony and Howard with a wry grin. “We will proceed.”

Howard calls out the numbers as he turns the dials while Tony turns to look at the machine, watching in awe as it lights up. He’s watching history come to life and it’s not until this moment, watching Steve turn from Steve Rogers to Captain America, that Tony realizes he’s also witnessing the _present_.

Tony’s been so worried about how his actions are going to affect the future that he hasn’t been paying enough attention to how his actions are affecting the now.

***

Tony watches with no small amount of _need_ coursing through him as the container is opened to reveal Steve, all buff and sweaty and attractive. Tony had been attracted to Steve before, but not... not like this. Now he can’t look away like his eyes are meant to be glued to Steve’s hard abs for the rest of his life.

(Which Tony would be okay with, if he’s being completely honest.)

“It worked,” Tony grins, stepping onto the platform to help Steve out of the hunk of metal that had changed him into the stuff of legends. “Stevie, it _worked._ ”

“How do you feel, Steve?” Peggy asks gleefully, coming up behind Tony.

“Taller,” Steve says, and then he grins down at Tony, and Tony’s pretty sure his heart stops beating in his chest.

Steve is absolutely gorgeous.

“Stop him!” Tony hears Erskine yell before there’s an explosion, the sound of gunshots, and Tony is being thrown to the ground with all two-hundred-some-odd pounds of beefcake on top of him.

Tony sits up with a groan after Steve rolls off of him and watches Steve run from the room. He only has a moment to worry before he remembers the gunshots he’d heard and rushes to Erskine’s side, hoping he can still do something.

He’s too late.

Erskine’s eyes are glassy and staring at nothing.

“No,” Tony protests, because this is his fault. He should have known better. His dad had told him enough times what had happened to Erskine. He should have remembered. He shouldn’t have been so distracted by Steve.

He should’ve stopped it.

***

Tony waits next to Howard in the lab as a tech takes a blood sample from Steve. He doesn’t say anything, hasn’t said anything since Steve returned, sans stolen serum, and Tony checked to make sure he was okay.

They’re looking at the submarine, trying to figure out how it works and if there is anything they can learn from the tech. Tony stops when he comes upon a HYDRA brand in the metal and his stomach roils. Instead of commenting on it just yet, he turns to watch Steve and Peggy.

“Think you got enough?” Steve asks as Peggy closes the case on the tubes of blood.

“Any hope of reproducing a program is locked in your genetic code,” Peggy tells him. “But without Dr. Erskine, it could take years.”

“He deserved more than this,” Steve says and Tony nods his head even as he wraps his arms around his stomach.

“If it could only work once, he’d be proud it was you,” Peggy tells him right as Senator Brandt walks in the room with Colonel Phillips right behind him.

“Colonel Phillips, my committee is demanding answers.”

“Great,” Phillips says. “Why don’t we start with how a German spy got a ride to my secret installation in your car?” He makes a face of disgust before turning to Howard and Tony. “What have we got here?”

“Speaking modestly, I’m the best mechanical engineer in this country. But I don’t know what’s inside this thing or how it works,” Howard remarks, Tony rolls his eyes. “We’re not even close to this technology.”

“Then who is?” Brandt asks.

“HYDRA,” Tony says, pointing to the symbol he’d found. “They're good, I’ll admit, but I’m sure with a couple of weeks I could figure this out.” He turns to Howard with a grin that probably has too much bite in it. “You may be the best in this country, Stark. But I’m the best on this _continent_.”

“HYDRA is the Nazi deep science division,” Peggy explains after a moment of Tony and Howard glaring at each other. “It’s led by Johann Schmidt. But he has much bigger ambitions.”

“HYDRA’s practically a cult,” Phillips takes over. “They worship Schmidt, they think he’s invincible.”

“So what are you gonna do about it?” Brandt asks.

“Spoke to the president this morning. As of today, the SSR is being retasked.”

“Colonel?”

“We are taking the fight to HYDRA,” Phillips tells them. “Pack your bags, Agent Carter, Mr. Carter. You too, Stark. You’re flying to London tonight.”

“Sir, if you’re going after Schmidt, I want in,” Steve says, exchanging a glance with Tony.

“You’re an experiment,” Phillips scoffs. “You’re going to Alamogordo.”

“The serum worked.”

“I asked for an army and all I got was you,” Phillips says harshly. “You are not enough.”

“With all due respect, Colonel,” Tony interrupts, wiping his hands on a rag. “I think you’re gonna find Steve here is better than an army.”

“Your man here is right,” Senator Brandt says after a moment. “I’ve seen you in action, Steve. More importantly, the country’s seen it. The enlistment lines have been around the block since your picture hit the newsstands. You don’t take a soldier, a symbol like that, and hide him in a lab. Son, do you want to serve your country on the most important battlefield of the war?”

“Sir, that’s all I want.”

“Then congratulations,” Senator Brandt says, holding out a hand and grinning when Steve takes it. “You just got promoted.”


	5. Tony Stark is the Iron Gauntlet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all the comments and kudos! It's very very much appreciated!

It doesn’t take much to convince Colonel Phillips that he needs one week to visit Sarah Rogers before he can head to London.

Tony’s pretty sure both Peggy and Howard vouch for him.

He arrives in Brooklyn at nine pm on a Tuesday, but when he gets there he finds that the Rogers’ apartment is being occupied by another family. Tony’s lucky, though, because they have a note for him.

_Tony,_

_I hated living alone. I understand why you and Steve had to go off and join the good fight but it was too much for me._

Dread fills his stomach but Tony keeps reading anyway.

_I’m living with the Barnes family now. They’ve been kind enough to take me in. I left a note for Stevie too; if you could get it to him, I’d really appreciate that._

_Your suit is at the Barnes’s as well. I have a feeling that’s what you’ve come back for, not to see a frail old woman like me, but that’s okay. I know it’s important to you, so you can come on over and pick it up whenever you’d like. I’m sure Becca would love to see you._

_Sarah_

Tony smiles at the note and pockets it before making his way down the steps and the two blocks to the Barnes household. He knocks tentatively on the door and is greeted by a tight hug when it flies open.

“Mistah Anthony,” Becca sobs into his chest. “I missed ya.”

“I missed you, too, Bec,” Tony says, hugging the girl tight. “I hope you’ve been keeping up on your studies.”

“‘Course I have,” Becca says, eyes bright with tears as she smiles up at him. “Gotta show you up somehow.”

Tony smiles and lets Becca pull him inside where Sarah is sitting on the couch with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders and a cup of tea in her hands. Tony frowns when he steps in front of her and it takes a moment for Sarah to acknowledge him.

“Tony?” Sarah asks quietly before bursting into tears. Tony wraps his arms around her gently, holding Sarah until her tears stop. “I’ve been watching Steve on the TV. Hard to believe my boy’s grown up so much.”

“He’s gonna be just fine, Miss Sarah,” Tony lies, because he’s really, really not going to be. It’s not his place to break a sick woman’s heart though. “Bucky, too.”

“How’s sweet Bucky doing?” Sarah asks after a moment, shaking her head as if to clear it.

“He’s doing fine. I’m going to be in England this time next week and I’ll make sure of it,“ Tony promises.

“He wrote you a letter,” Becca says from behind Tony. “Told me to give it to you when I next saw you.”

Becca holds out the letter and Tony takes it with a grin. He doesn’t open it, though. Instead he asks Becca to show him where his suit is. He has one week to get what he needs from it.

“What’re you doing with it?” Becca asks the evening of his second day at the Barnes household. He hasn’t come out of Bucky’s room except to head to the store to buy parts he couldn’t salvage.

“Making this thing work,” Tony says with a grin as he fiddles with the repulsor on the gauntlet. “So that I can kick HYDRA’s ass.”

“Neat,” Becca says, and then she joins him, sitting in the corner of the room most afternoons, and chatting idly as he works on the suit.

“When I built this the first time,” Tony says quietly on day five, one day before he has to leave. “In a cave, the same cave where I built the reactor, I used it to save my life. There was another man there, a man I couldn’t save. And every time I put on the suit I think about him.”

“He’d be proud of you,” Becca says, just as quiet. “He’d be proud that you’re not wasting your life.”

Tony wonders if she’s right.

***

“I’ll see you in a couple months,” Tony promises, kissing Sarah on the forehead before doing the same to Becca. “Tell your mom I said thanks for letting me stay.”

“One more day and you could tell her personally.”

“I ship out tonight, Bec,” Tony says apologetically. “Just give her my love, alright?”

“I’ll miss you,” Becca says, throwing her arms around Tony and kissing his cheek. “Give that to Buck and Stevie for me, would ya?”

“Of course,” Tony grins. He doesn’t look back as he walks towards the taxi, suit and letters in his bag.

***

The flight to Heathrow is uneventful. From there, Tony meets up with the ex-SSR members on base with the 107th near the frontlines.

“Edward,” Peggy greets, kissing Tony on the cheek when he walks into the Colonel’s tent. “How was your vacation?”

“Fruitful,” Tony says with a grin. He pulls a gauntlet from his back and shows it off: while the scratches have been buffed out, the glove is still a lot less showy then he’d like, even with the shiny black paint. It still works with the arc reactor, and that’s all Tony needs.

“Did you know,“ the Colonel says from where he’s sitting, “that you’ve been promoted, Sergeant Carter?”

“No way,” Tony gasps, because he really wasn’t expecting that. “Why?”

“For your help with Project Rebirth and the notes you left on the submarine,” The Colonel explains. “Not to mention you’ve got more brains than half our men and we need another leader like you on the field.”

“I—” Tony blinks twice. “What?”

“I saw you fight,” Peggy says with a grin. “Back when you were a recruit. You were training the other recruits better than your Sergeant was.”

“He was an idiot,” Tony grumbles.

“And you weren’t afraid to say anything,” the Colonel notes. “Hence: promoted.”

“Okay,” Tony says after a moment. “Um, my friend. Sergeant Barnes. He’s part of the 107th. Any chance I can find out where he’s bunking?”

“He’s in the north quadrant,” Peggy says. “I can show you the way.”

“Thank you, Agent Carter.”

***

“Knock knock,” Tony says with a grin when he’s standing alone outside Bucky’s tent. “Anyone home? I heard a jerk lives here.”

“Tony?” He hears Bucky gasp and the next thing he knows the tent flap is flying open and Tony is being tackled to the ground. “Holy shit, you’re real!”

“Sure am,” Tony agrees with a grin. “And I’m gonna be real sorry with the way my back hit the ground.”

“Shit,” Bucky says, his grin turning sheepish. “Guess I was just excited.”

“I can see that,” Tony laughs, his smile wide enough to hurt now. “What’s you say we go inside though?”

“Sure thing, sweet thang,” Bucky agrees, helping Tony stand before leading him into the tent where he sits down and pulls Tony down next to him. “Wanna tell me how exactly you got to be here?”

Tony nods. “Well, you know how Steve is a stubborn fool?”

“Uh-huh.”

“He out stubborn-ed the US Army, participated in an experiment, and now he’s Captain America.”

“Wait, what?” Bucky gasps, standing up so that he can glare down at Tony on the cot. “Tony, you were supposed to protect him!”

“I was!” Tony shouts. “Bucky. Believe me. This was me protecting him.”

“How?” Bucky demands with his arms crossed.

“It’s gonna keep him alive,” Tony says quietly. “And maybe, with me here now, it’s gonna keep you alive, too.”

“Tony…”

“Let me explain?” Tony asks sheepishly. “Cause I need you to understand, Buck. I already told Stevie, but I need you to know, too.”

“Okay,” Bucky says, sitting back next to Tony and grabbing a hand. “But I’m still not happy.”

It’s not any easier to explain his life the second time than it was the first time. He stutters over names. He explains his trip to The Tea Maker, how he became Iron Man. He explains how he knows what’s going to happen to Steve and Bucky, and how he plans to stop it.

He cries, because of course he does. And just like with Steve, Bucky pulls him into a warm hug.

Silence falls in the tent as Tony gathers his thoughts. He wonders what Bucky looks like right now, but he can’t bring himself to look.

“Can I see it?” Bucky asks quietly after a few minutes.

“Sure,” Tony says, lifting his shirt up easily. “It’s not pretty, though.”

“Everything about you is pretty,” Bucky mutters absently, looking at Tony’s chest, at his arc reactor, at the thing keeping Tony’s heart beating. Tony blushes. “I think this is my favorite shade of blue. Asides from Stevie’s eyes, of course.”

Tony bites back a whine as Bucky looks up at Tony with a smirk. “Don’t worry. Your eyes are my favorite shade of brown.”

“Bucky,” Tony breathes. Bucky wraps a hand around Tony’s neck and pulls him into a kiss.

“I know I gotta call you Edward when we’re out there,” Bucky says, gesturing to the door of the tent. “But you’ll always be my Anthony.”

Tony doesn’t realize he’s crying again until Bucky’s wiping away his tears with a thumb.

“You sure do cry a lot, sugar,” Bucky notes, kissing Tony’s forehead gently enough that his heart squeezes.

“Only around you and Stevie,” Tony says with a wry grin.

“Y’know how The Tea Maker said your soulmates were dead?” Bucky says, tracing the edges of the reactor, ignoring the parts that meant Tony was a deadman walking.

“Intimately.”

“Sorry,” Bucky winces. “‘S just, have you thought of seeing her again? Now that you’re here with me and Stevie?”

“I thought you could only see her when you’re twenty-one?”

“That’s just when you _have_ to see her, doll. There’s no rule saying you can’t see her twice.”

“Holy shit,” Tony says, an excited grin growing on his face as he turns to throw his arms around Bucky. “Buck, you’re a goddamn genius.”

“And don’t you forget it,” Bucky grins, adding another kiss to the collection of forehead kisses that Tony plans to cherish for the rest of his life.

***

“I haven’t read your letter yet,” Tony admits when they’re walking to get breakfast in the morning. “Figured I was gonna see you soon so I didn’t need to. Anything I miss that I should know?”

“Only that I missed you,” Bucky says with a grin. “So nothing you didn’t figure out already, I’m sure.”

“Yeah, nothing I didn’t already know,” Tony smirks.

“I want you to meet my team,” Bucky says, leading Tony to where a group of men are sitting. “They’re a rough crowd, but they’re good people.”

“Who’s that, Sarge?” a man calls as the duo approach the table. “Got another teammate?”

“Nah,” Bucky grins. “This is my friend Edward. He’s gonna have a team of his own starting this afternoon.”

The men whistle and Tony smirks at them. “Could just take Buck’s team. Y’all look like you know what you’re doin’.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” Bucky gasps in mock offense, covering his chest with his hand.

“Don’t think they’d let me,” Tony nods at the men and then takes one of the free seats. “Though I’m sure we’ll be good enough friends anyways. I’ve always been a charmer.”

***

Breakfast goes well and then Tony has to head back to see Colonel Phillips for his assignment.

He still doesn’t know how he feels about being a Sergeant, but there’s not much he can do for it right now. He needs to focus on keeping himself alive so that he can keep Bucky and Steve alive as well.

“Colonel,” Tony greets when he enters the tent. “Here for my orders.”

“Sergeant Carter,” Phillips greets. “The SSR is officially disestablished, but I would like you to lead a team of five men in maintaining and updating the weapons of the 107th.”

“That sounds like something I can actually do,” Tony says in relief. “I thought you would have me training soldiers, sir.”

“These men are soldiers, Carter, but you don’t have to train them to fight.”

“Which is good,” Tony says with a smirk. “Because I learned to fight dirty.”

“You wanna show us how those things work?” Phillips asks, gesturing to Tony’s bag. “I’m curious.”

“We’re gonna need an open field,” Tony grins widely, showing all his teeth. “And a lot of targets.”

***

There’s an entire crowd standing behind the Colonel when the targets are set up. Tony has both gauntlets set up on his hands, connected by a thin wire to the arc reactor. They won’t take nearly as much power as the full suit would, but Tony still has to be careful with them.

During testing, he’d noticed that the black marks would spread a mere millimeter each time he’d tested the gauntlet.

“Ready?” Tony asks with a grin. Phillips nods and a cheer rises from the crowd. Tony’s not sure how they’d heard about the demonstration, but he wouldn’t be surprised if Bucky had something to do with it.

The first blast hits the middle target dead center. There’s a bit of a kickback that strains Tony’s shoulder but all he has to do to avoid it is shift his stance on the next blast. He takes out all five targets with deadly precision and when he turns there’s a shocked hush over the crowd.

“Christ, son,” Phillips says, face ashen even as his eyes shine brightly. “That was impressive.”

“It used to be more impressive,” Tony promises with a shrug and a smug smirk. “But I had to be picky with what I brought with me.”

“Do it again!” A cry comes from the crowd. Tony hesitates a moment before smiling and waving a metal fist at the crowd.

“Not today, ladies,” Tony yells back. “Things to do, people to see. You know the drill.”

The crowd disperses after a moment leaving Colonel Phillips, Bucky, Howard, and Peggy standing with him in the field. Howard is eying his gauntlets curiously while Phillips and Peggy talk to each other.

“Some show you put on there,” Bucky says, sidling up to Tony. “What else could that suit of yours do?”

“I could fly,” Tony whispers conspiratorially.

“You’re kidding,” Bucky gasps, leaning back. “Really?”

“Serious as a heart attack,” Tony grins. “Lot more impressive than these on their own.”

“Those are still plenty impressive, Edward,” Howard says, joining the conversation finally. “I’d love to take a look at them sometime.”

“I actually need your help with something else, Howard,” Tony says, his smile dipping to something more serious. “Something rather important.”

***

“The hell is that?” Howard demands, eyes glued to the blue glow of Tony’s chest. The lab is cold on Tony’s skin. He wishes he could turn the heat up, but it’s not as simple as asking JARVIS to do it for him anymore.

“Arc reactor, miniaturized,” Tony says with a shrug. “It’s what powers the gauntlets. It’s also the thing that’s powering my heart.”

“What’s wrong with it?” Howard asks a moment later. “You wouldn’t need my help if something wasn’t wrong.”

Tony taps the glass twice before looking up at Howard. “It’s killing me.”

“I thought it was keeping you alive?”

“Yeah, well, it’s also killing me,” Tony shrugs. “This was the original. It’s not the best but it’s what I’ve got.”

“Do you know what’s wrong?”

Tony nods because he knew that palladium poisoning was a possibility when he’d made the reactor in the first place. It beat the alternative of a car battery in his chest. He just didn’t know of any alternatives for the core of the reactor.

“The compound that I used for this is toxic to humans at the rate that it’s entering my bloodstream,” Tony explains wryly, tapping the reactor again before tracing one of the thin black lines. “I’m lucky that I didn’t have much of a chance to use the full suit. Honestly, I think I’d have gotten myself killed by now if I had.”

“How’d you make this?” Howard asks, stepping closer to get a better look at the reactor. “This looks like something from the future.”

Tony snorts even though he feels a jolt at how close to home that hits.

“Nowhere fun,” Tony tells him bitterly because he absolutely cannot tell Howard the truth. “I know you’re a curious man by nature, Howard, but this isn’t something I can share, even with you.”

Howard looks at Tony for a few moments before nodding. “I understand. Tell me what you can and I’ll help you figure out the rest.”

“Thank you,” Tony smiles. “That’s all I’m asking.”

***

“Tony!” Bucky greets quietly with a grin when Tony enters his tent later that evening. “How’d it go with Howard?”

“He’s going to try to help me,” Tony informs, sitting on the edge of Bucky’s bed and sighing at the feeling of being off his feet for the first time since breakfast. “In the meantime, I’ve been put in charge of a team and given the task of maintaining and upgrading weapons for the 107th.”

“That’s awesome!” Bucky pulls Tony up and into a crushing hug that has Tony’s face heating up. “Tony, you’re amazing.”

“I’m nothing special,” Tony argues because he’s stupid and he still doesn’t know how to accept a genuine compliment.

“You’re pretty damn special to me,” Bucky argues immediately. “And to Stevie, even if he’s too much of a stubborn ass to say anything.”

Tony looks down to hide his smile.

“What?”

“Well, it’s not so much that he said anything,“ Tony explains. “It’s more that he stopped thinking I was out to get him.”

“Are you out to get him?” Bucky asks with a smirk, his hands falling to Tony’s hips.

Tony pulls back with a frown, smacking Bucky’s arm. “Of course not!”

Bucky hums and pulls Tony back in. Tony falls against the man with a sigh, loving how strong and warm Bucky feels against his tired bones. Bucky quietly leads Tony to the bed where he gathers the older man into his arms.

“I’m tired,” Tony says after a moment. “I mean, I’ve been tired for a while, Buck. But right now? Trying to keep you and Steve alive... I’m exhausted already, and neither of you are in any real danger yet.”

“Maybe,” Bucky says gruffly before clearing his throat and continuing. “Maybe you don’t need to save us.”

“No,” Tony denies, horrified at the very thought, and sits up so that he can glare at Bucky. “No. No fucking way.”

“Tony—”

Tony shakes his head, stopping Bucky with a hand to the man’s mouth. “Bucky. I can’t sit here and not do anything to stop two of the best men I’ve ever met from dying. I can’t. Please don’t ask that of me.”

Bucky nods once and pulls Tony back into his chest, running a gentle hand through Tony’s hair until his shaking stops and he feels like he can breathe again. Tony holds onto the other brunet with everything he has in him.

Tony doesn’t think he’s in love with Bucky, doesn’t think he’s in love with Steve, but he knows he does already love them. He knows that he could, though, just fall that last bit for them, and he’d love them both thoroughly and passionately and for the rest of his life. He knows this, but he can’t—won’t—let himself do that.

“Sergeant Barnes, Sergeant Carter,” a voice, Phillips, calls from outside. “I’ve got a mission for you two.”

“Here we go,” Tony says grimly, sitting up and rolling his shoulders to release the tension he feels building there. “Straight into the fire.”

***

“I thought I was supposed to be in charge of weapons,” Tony says, not for the first time, as he marches out with the 107th. “Phillips knows I’m not a real soldier.”

“You had the same training as the rest of us,” Dum Dum says beside him, clapping a warm hand on Tony’s shoulder. “Besides, we’ve seen the power you’ve got in those gloves of yours. We need a man like you on a mission like this.”

“Alright,” Tony acquiesces because he knows that Dum Dum is right (and that the man might hit him if he complains again). “I’m still not happy with this.”

“It’s a suicide mission,” Monty says from behind Tony. “We’re at least fifteen miles past the front lines already. There’s no way we’re all coming back alive.”

Tony feels his heart start to race even as his back straightens. “Nah, we’re gonna be fine.”

He says it with such conviction that all the men around him look surprised. And Tony understands because this really does feel like a suicide mission. There’s no way the enemy—HYDRA—doesn’t know they’re there and yet they haven’t seen a single enemy.

The scouts—Bucky among them as one of the best snipers in the brigade—haven’t returned, and wouldn’t return for another hour unless something was wrong.

Tony has a sinking feeling that there is something wrong moments before the gunfire starts. He has enough sense to knock Dum Dum to the ground, a bullet hitting the tree right where the man’s head had been.

From there, it’s chaos. Men run in every direction and Tony has a hard time shooting for fear of hitting his own men.

“Soldiers!” Tony yells when he sees Captain Fowler fall to the ground, a dart in his neck. “Soldiers of the 107th! Fall in!”

They listen to him, much to Tony’s surprise, and soon the 107th is fighting in formation and pushing HYDRA back. Tony has a moment to worry about Bucky, but it’s only fleeting as he sees two HYDRA goons sneak behind their ranks.

Tony spins and shoots them both down, his first shots of the night, and then HYDRA is falling back away from them and Tony knows it’s a trap.

“Sergeant Flint,” Tony says sharply, turning to the other Sergeant with wild eyes. “Take your unit and retreat; don’t stop until you’ve reached camp. Tell Phillips that he’s an idiot.”

Flint looks like he’s about to argue but at Tony’s pointed look to the retreating enemy, the man nods in understanding.

Half of their numbers break off at a run, heading back to the frontlines and back to safety. Tony sees a couple of Bucky’s men leave as well and he doesn’t blame them. HYDRA doesn’t shoot them down and Tony understands then why they’re retreating.

“They mean to capture us,” Tony says quietly to Dum Dum who nods. “And I think we need to let them.”

“They’ll kill us all,” Monty hisses from Tony’s right. “Edward, that’s a death wish.”

“You can retreat with Flint’s men,” Tony snaps back. “But we need to know what they’re planning and this is the best way to do it.”

“Okay,” Dum Dum agrees and gestures for the men to huddle around them. They all turn to Tony and he swallows thickly before nodding to himself. He can do this.

“Alright, men, HYDRA’s retreating but that’s not necessarily a good sign. They’ve got what they wanted and with our scouts not back I think what they wanted was them.” Tony looks at the men he can see, making eye contact with each of them briefly. “This mission may end in our deaths, if it does I wouldn’t be surprised. But first, we must do what we can. HYDRA’s base at Azzano is one of their biggest strongholds. If we can get in there and tear it apart we have a chance of beating HYDRA.”

The men nod but Tony’s not done yet.

“That being said, I will not begrudge any man who walks away right now. We’re fifteen miles into enemy territory with another fifteen to go. We’re not likely to come back from this. If you turn back now, no man here will say a thing.”

Tony waits for a minute to allow the men to make their decisions—but when no one leaves, he grins. These men are strong and Tony knows they’re going to be okay.

***

The cages are not comfortable. HYDRA stuffs fifteen men into a space made for five at most and locks them up. They’re below a walkway and Tony can still hear HYDRA working above them. He grins at Dum Dum when their guard turns his back.

HYDRA had taken all their weapons but Tony wasn’t worried about his gauntlets; he’d buried them before they’d gone after the retreating men.

“There’s no sign of Bucky,” Monty whispers in his ear and Tony leans back against the bars harshly. He’d thought he’d have time to switch himself out for the man. The thought of Bucky being tortured by HYDRA has acid rising in his stomach.

“Gabe says he gave himself up to protect the rest of the scouts,” Monty continues. “Gregory was also taken. There’s another prisoner here, goes by Felix, says that the men who leave never come back.”

“You work quick, Monty,” Tony says with a tired smile at the man. “We’re lucky to have you.”

“Nah,” Monty says, casually. “I think we’re all lucky to have a man like you leading us. Captain Fowler was good at following orders but he’s definitely not someone who should be giving them.”

“They didn’t kill him,” Tony says with a frown. “At least he wasn’t dead when we got captured. I saw HYDRA men carrying him and they wouldn’t even bring back the bodies of their own dead.”

“So whatever they want us for is bad,” Dum Dum muses with a frown. “We need to figure out a way to bring this place down.”

“No, we need to figure out a plan for when our way out shows up.”

“You know something you’re not telling us,” Monty accuses. “Who’s coming?”

“You all know about Captain America, right? The Star-Spangled Man with a Plan parading around the US getting more men to enlist?”

“That phoney?”

Tony grins, “The very same, though I’d say the phoney is the senator for not seeing that Captain America, or Steve as I know him, is worth a hundred soldiers.”

“What of him?”

“Well, Sergeant Barnes is his soulmate,” Tony says.

“I thought you were Bucky’s soulmate, with all that time you spend together,” Dum Dum grins.

Tony blushes and frowns for a moment before sighing. He’d been denying it long enough, wanting to wait to see The Tea Maker again but he’s not sure he can wait that long for happiness. He knows, deep down, that it’s Bucky and Steve, it’s always been Bucky and Steve.

“Well, I’m their soulmate, too.”

“So your boy toy is gonna come bust us out of this hellhole?” Monty asks with a frown. “What makes you think that?”

“Well, one thing you should know about Steve Rogers is that you should never underestimate Steve Rogers,” Tony says with a grin. “The next thing you should know about Steve, is that his plans are probably some of the dumbest things I’ve heard, but he somehow manages to make them work.”

***

Tony frowns at the HYDRA guard patrolling the slim hall between the cages. He’s tempted to call out, to taunt the man just for something to do, but he doesn’t want to put his men—because they’re his men now—in harm’s way.

“It’s been a week,” Dum Dum hisses in Tony’s ear. “Are you sure your man is coming?”

“Absolutely,” Tony says adamantly. He wasn’t sure about the exact timeline but he knows, just like he knows how to breathe, that Steve is on his way. “He’s gonna be here soon.”

It’s still another three hours and a lunch of rock hard bread later when the first explosion rocks the base. Tony grins knowingly at Dum Dum as the men all clamber to their feet. The guard looks around in shock but, as instructed, the men all start banging on their bars, causing a ruckus and clearly scaring the guard who swings around to point his gun at whoever he can.

“Shoot that and you’re dead,” a voice, self-righteous and completely wonderfully welcome, intones before the man is being knocked to the ground by none other than Captain America.

“Steve!” Tony shouts, drawing the man’s attention to him. “They’ve got Buck!”

Steve nods and hands the keys he took from the guard to Tony before taking off, knocking out any guard who tries to stand in his way.

“Okay,” Tony says once the men are all free. “You all know the plan. Monty, you’re in charge. Get these men out safe. I’m going to find the map.”

“Are you really sure you should go alone, Eddie?” Dum Dum asks one final time. No amount of prior argument had changed Tony’s mind.

“Definitely,” Tony grins widely, showing his teeth. “These assholes won’t know what hit them.”

Tony grabs the gun from the first guard and turns the opposite way of his men, heading further into the base. He shoots every HYDRA agent he sees and nearly gets shot himself a couple times but it’s not difficult to find where the main control room is.

It helps that Tony’s seen a map of Azzano before, one created by Howard with the help of Steve. A faded thing that Howard probably didn’t remember had been in his collection of Captain America memorabilia.

“That map is super convenient,” Tony says, staring at the large map on the table in front of him, one marking every major HYDRA location.

He takes a few minutes, five minutes tops, and studies the map. He knows he’ll remember every location. He grabs a couple of papers, not sure what they are but assuming anything from the base would be useful.

Tony’s just about to leave when the door blows open and Steve and Bucky run into the room, Bucky with a hand over his stomach.

“I thought you were leaving with the men!” Steve shouts, lowering his shield. “Tony, what the hell?”

“That might’ve been what your half of the nod meant but it’s not what my half meant,” Tony says, holding up the papers. “We can argue about it later, Stevie, we gotta split.”

“Fine,” Steve huffs petulantly. “I’m assuming you’ve studied the map?”

“Yes, we’re good, let’s go, Steve,” He turns to Bucky and grins at the man. “Good to see you alive, Buckaroo.”

“You too, Tony.”

“Alright, good, let’s go,” Steve commands. Tony and Bucky follow him out the door immediately.

***

Another explosion rocks the base, sending Tony crashing against the wall and nearly toppling Bucky over the railing that’s protecting them from a thirty-foot drop. Steve catches the back of his shirt and pulls Bucky back, sending both of them crashing into Tony.

“As much as I like this,” Tony says breathlessly. “I think we should keep moving.”

The men nod and stand up, helping Tony to his feet and they keep running, the compound exploding all around them. They’re on a bridge, nearly to the other side, when Schmidt, the man in charge of HYDRA, enters, maniacal laughter and all.

“Captain America!” Schmidt crows. Tony immediately decides that he’s never hated a voice more. “How exciting! I’m a great fan of your films. So Dr. Erskine managed it after all. Not exactly an improvement, but still impressive.”

Steve pulls back and punches the man in the face, much to Tony’s unbridled glee.

“You’ve got no idea,” Steve says, voice cold. Tony hesitates when there’s a tug on his sleeve only to turn and see Bucky trying to pull him back, glancing worriedly at the bridge. Tony nods and follows just in time for Schmidt to retaliate and send Steve back a few feet.

“Thanks,” Tony whispers, squeezing Bucky’s arm and then turning back to watch Steve and Schmidt intently.

The man on the other side, Zola, pulls a lever. Tony watches as the bridge retracts, separating the fighters. Tony grabs onto Steve when he’s close enough and tugs him back so he doesn’t fall into the fires below them.

“No matter what lies Erskine told you,” Schmidt begins, and then he starts to pull on the skin of his face like every overdramatic movie villain ever. “You see I was his greatest success!”

“You don’t have one of those, do you?” Bucky asks Steve absently as Tony gags.

“That’s the worst thing I’ve ever seen.”

“You are deluded, Captain,” Schmidt calls in that same voice, projected across the abyss in front of them and sounding like an infomercial ad. He and Zola step back into the elevator behind them. “You pretend to be a simple soldier, but in reality, you are just afraid to admit that we have left humanity behind. Unlike you, I embrace it proudly. Without fear!”

“Then why are you running?” Steve calls as the elevator doors slide shut.

“This way,” Tony shouts, already by the stairs leading up. He points to the glowing exit beacon one level up.

Steve and Bucky run to catch up as Tony makes it to the next stairs. He stops at the gantry and hesitates for a moment.

“We’ve got to cross one at a time,” Tony tells them, turning back.

“You first,” The two men say together, briefly sharing a grin. Tony rolls his eyes.

“Fine,” Tony says and carefully crosses the gantry, Bucky following, landing next to him right as another explosion happens and the gantry collapses into the flames rising below them.

“Gotta be a rope or something!” Bucky shouts back, staring wide-eyed and fearful at Steve.

“Just jump, you asshole!” Tony shouts when he sees Steve open his mouth. “We’re not leaving without you.”

Tony steps to the side and gives Steve space to land. Once the man lands beside him, they run through the doors and make their way to the outside of the building.

“We’re gonna have to jump,” Tony says, eyeing a tree about ten feet away. “The rest of the men should be waiting at the meeting point.”

“Can you make that?” Bucky asks, eyeing the jump.

“I’ve made worse,” Tony shrugs, and then he jumps, latching onto a branch and holding on tightly even as it digs into his fingers, ripping at his skin.

“Let go,” he hears Steve shout after there’s a thud below him and Tony listens without even looking, crashing into Steve’s arms.

“That could’ve gone worse,” Tony says once his feet are firmly planted on the ground.

“Could’ve gone better, too,” Bucky says, gently kissing Tony on the top of the head.

“Let’s go, you two,” Steve says roughly, but when Tony looks, the man is smiling gently at them.

“Alright,” Tony agrees easily.

***

The men are waiting where they were captured with Tony’s gauntlets in hand and Tony nearly kisses Monty because now he doesn’t have to stop and dig them out himself. Tony grins his thanks at the man before taking them and slipping them over his now bandaged hands.

“You have a tank,” Tony says, grinning at Dum Dum who is sitting on top of said tank. “Why’d you steal a tank?”

“Cause I could,” Dum Dum laughs. “And cause we’ve got some injured men.”

Tony’s smile fades and he glances at Steve and Bucky for a moment before climbing up onto the tank. “I’ve got some medical experience.”

“Since when?” Steve asks with a frown. Tony had fought with them over the bandaging of his injured hands. To his own credit, they had still been in the middle of a recently-felled HYDRA base.

Tony smiles wide and fake at the super-soldier, not wanting to talk about it. Not able to talk about it. About the cave, about every time before the cave where he had to figure out this shit on his own. About how the Howard they know now is not the Howard he becomes after Tony is born.

“It doesn’t matter, Stevie,” Bucky says gently, pulling Steve away from Tony and to the front of the group. “He’s got this.”

Tony nods gratefully and pulls himself next to one of the injured soldiers. He smiles gently at the man as he wraps a bandage, handed to him by Dum Dum, around his leg.

“What’s your name, soldier?” Tony asks to distract the man, wiping at the sweat on the man’s forehead.

“Anthony, sir,” The man replies, and Tony grins.

“That’s a fantastic name.”

“Thank you, sir.”

***

It takes them nearly seven hours to walk back to the front lines with the tank carrying the injured men. Tony jumps off as they approach and makes his way up to the front to walk with Steve and Bucky. He grins at the men, wipes the dirt and sweat off his own forehead, and falls in step, just behind Steve.

“What’s you say Phillips’ jaw drops?” Tony whispers to Bucky, grinning at the man slyly.

“Bets with you ain’t fair, doll,” Bucky grins back. Tony pouts, turning away from the man and staring ahead as the soldiers in the base start to notice their approach.

“Some of these men need medical attention,” Steve says when they’ve made it to Phillips, who's jaw is just slack enough that Tony grins over at Bucky. Steve salutes the Colonel briefly. “I’d like to surrender myself for disciplinary action.”

“That won’t be necessary.”

“Yes, sir,” Steve grins as Colonel Phillips turns and walks away.

“You’re late,” Peggy says, walking up to Steve and smiling widely at the man.

Steve holds up his transponder, with a bullet hole in the corner and a sheepish grin on his lips that Tony kinda wants to kiss off his face. “Couldn’t call my ride.”

“Hey!” Bucky yells, grinning, clearly proud of his soulmate. “Let’s hear it for Captain America.”

As the men cheer, Tony reaches out and grabs Steve’s hand, squeezing it. The super soldier turns to him with a grin and smiles back. Tony smiles as Bucky grabs Steve’s other hand, and standing there with his soulmates, hand in hand, Tony feels complete in a way he’s never managed to feel before.


	6. Tony Stark is Edward Carter

Tony flops down on the bed, ignoring the way the dried mud comes off his exposed arms in flakes. He doesn’t even look up at Steve and Bucky whispering in the entrance to the room they share now that they’re back in London.

“I can hear you,” Tony says with a frown, lifting his head to stare at the men. “You’re not leaving me behind on your next mission.”

“Tones,” Bucky says gently, sitting next to Tony and rubbing his shin. “Doll, you’re exhausted. Between fighting HYDRA bases with the Howling Commandos and building our weapons, I know you haven’t been sleeping.”

“I’m—”

“If you say _I’m fine_ I’m going to sit on you,” Steve says, running a hand through Tony’s hair. “You’re not fine. You’re hanging on by a thread and I don’t want to see what happens when that snaps.”

“You two ganging up on me is not fair,” Tony whines, looking up at his soulmates— _his soulmates_ —with a pout.

“Why don’t we get you changed and into bed?” Steve says gently, first helping Tony into a sitting position and then helping Bucky pull off Tony’s shirt.

“Wish you could get me naked and do other things,” Tony says sleepily, not even awake enough to enjoy Steve’s faint blush. “Don’t wanna sleep.”

“We’ll stay with you,” Bucky promises as he pulls off Tony’s pants. They help him into clean clothes before working on their own. Tony’s barely awake by the time Steve and Bucky crawl in next to him.

***

“It was supposed to be one mission,” Tony whines, not even bothering to say hi to Peggy when the woman walks into the tent he shares with Steve and Bucky. “I haven’t seen either of them in a month.”

Peggy runs a hand through his hair, scratching his scalp. Tony would purr if he was capable.

“It’s not proprietary or whatever for a woman to be alone in a man’s tent,” Tony says when Peggy doesn’t speak.

“You have two soulmates,” Peggy laughs, softly tugging Tony’s hair. “And besides, you’re practically family.”

Tony grins at the woman, not opening his eyes but still basking in her presence and her acceptance of him. He wonders, though: would she accept him if she knew the truth? Who he really was and where he came from?

“Where are they now?”

“Edward,” Peggy hedges and Tony knows he’s not supposed to know. Something about keeping him from running after them, but he needs this. He needs to know that his soulmates are going to be okay, that they’re going to come back to him.

“Peggy,” Tony says, opening an eye to look at her. “I need to know.”

“They’re in the Alps—”

Tony’s heart stops. He’s positive that it stops beating, that the poison in his blood has finally killed him.

“No,” Tony says, seconds away from screaming. “Peggy, no.”

“Edward?” Peggy asks, concern clear in her expression. “What’s going on?”

“Bucky’s going to die,” Tony says harshly. “He’s going to die and it’s going to be my fault because I’m not there.”

“Edward, Bucky’s going to be fine.”

Tony stands up, pushing Peggy away as his breaths come faster. He can’t hear her anymore over the static in his head and the harsh sound of his heartbeat in his ears. He needs to go. He needs to find Bucky and Steve and make sure his soulmates are okay.

Tony doesn’t realize they’re not alone anymore until one of the soldiers he works with on the weapons, John or Geof or something, is standing in front of him, holding tightly onto Tony’s shoulders.

“You can’t,” Tony cries, trying to break away when he feels a prick in his neck.

Tony’s last thought is that it’s his fault that Bucky is dead. Tony could’ve— _should’ve_ done something, the rest of the world be damned. The future be damned. Tony should’ve done more to protect his soulmate and now, as selfish as it feels, he’ll never be able to tell Bucky that he loves him.

***

Tony wakes up in a medical center with two warm hands holding onto his. He looks to the left to see Bucky and then quickly to the right to see Steve and breaks down into tears. He’s not sure he can process this, the fact that they’re both there when Tony had been so, so sure that Bucky wouldn’t make it back.

“I thought—”

“I almost was,” Bucky says, gripping Tony’s hand tightly. “But Steve knew and I knew. You saved me, Tony. I didn’t fall.”

“Oh god,” Tony sobs, flinging himself off the bed and into Bucky’s waiting arms. “Bucky, I—”

“It’s okay,” Bucky says softly, petting Tony’s hair just the way the genius likes. “It’s gonna be okay, Tony, doll. We’ve got you.”

Tony holds his hand out for Steve, seeing the man standing awkwardly at the foot of the bed. Steve is quick to wrap his arms around them and Tony can’t help the laugh that comes out. He’s so happy, so grateful that Steve and Bucky are there, that they’re alive.

That Tony didn’t fail them.

***

“There is a camp up ahead with about fifty men,” Steve whispers to the group, kneeling in front of them to draw a detailed map into the dirt. “Bucky and Gabe, you guys will take the east side; Tony and Monty, you guys take the west. Jackie, you and Dum Dum are going to circle around to the south. Jim and I will take the north side. You’ve got one hour to get into position. Once that hour has passed, if there’s no explosion, fall back. If there is, proceed as planned.”

“Aye aye, Captain,” Tony says with a mock salute. He lowers his hands quickly to hide the way they’re shaking. To hide that he’s more nervous than he’s been since he was flying the suit out of the cave surrounded by gunfire and flames.

“Alright, men,” Steve says, standing up and surveying the group. “Let’s head out.”

Tony falls into step with Monty as they quietly make their way through the trees, avoiding posted sentries and reaching their spot with nearly thirty minutes to spare.

“You know,” Monty says after they’ve been sitting in silence for a good five minutes. “You’re not like I’d thought you’d be the first time I’d met ya.”

“Back at the camp?”

“At Camp Lehigh,” Monty corrects and Tony gapes at the man. “I was in my last week of training there with Agent Carter when you started. I saw you stand up to Sergeant Shithead and I thought you’d be a lot more contemptuous when it comes to receiving orders.”

“Oh,” Tony nods because that really does make sense. “I totally am when the orders are stupid.”

“Then why don’t you argue with Steve more?” Monty asks. “Plenty of his plans are stupid.”

“Well, yeah,” Tony says with a grin. “But they’re only stupid because he’s putting so much pressure on himself. A lot of his plans are built to protect us and put him in the line of fire.”

“Which is pretty dumb, if you ask me,” Monty says with a grin.

“Well, yeah, but he’s not actually stupid and I trust him.”

“Yeah, I trust him, too.”

They fall back into silence as the minutes tick by, and just after the hour is up there’s an explosion on the north side and Tony and Monty are running towards the west wall. They take out the two guards waiting there and then Tony pulls his gauntlets on. Monty tosses a hooked rope over the edge of the wall and with easy steps the two climb the wall.

“To the map room,” Tony grins, taking off in the direction that their source said the room was in, Monty right behind him.

“Edward,” Monty hisses behind him and Tony comes to a stop, turning back to see Monty pointing into a room. “It’s right here.”

“Oh shit,” Tony says, knowing that’s not where they were told it would be. “Monty. This is a trap.”

“Fuck.”

“Okay, okay,” Tony says, taking a moment to think this through. “You stay here and see what you can find. Dum Dum and Jackie are closest so I’m gonna go check on them. You find Steve after you’re done.”

“We shouldn’t split up,” Monty warns quietly.

“But we need to warn them,” Tony argues. “Monty. Please.”

Monty takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “Okay, go.”

Tony takes off at a sprint, heading to the armory where he knows Dum Dum and Jackie are setting up explosives. Well, where they would be if the map was correct.

“Eddie,” Dum Dum whispers as Tony runs past where they’re hiding. “Stop.”

“Oh thank goodness. It’s a trap,” Tony says, out of breath. “You need to get out.”

Dum Dum and Jackie both nod, not questioning Tony’s orders until they realize that he’s not following them.

“What about you?” Dum Dum demands.

“I gotta find Bucky and Gabe,” Tony tells them. He pulls out a small but powerful explosive from his pocket. “You two need to go before I blow this place skyhigh.”

“But—”

Jackie grabs Dum Dum’s shoulder and tugs him the way they came. “We gotsa go, Dum.”

“See you soon, Eddie!”

The halls are suspiciously empty of people as Tony cuts across to the east side of the base. It doesn’t take very long, but the closer he gets, the more he dreads what he’s going to find.

He can smell smoke and hear someone shouting. There’s the sound of a motor growing fainter in the distance and when Tony steps into the last hallway he sees half a dozen HYDRA goons lying dead on the ground. He quickly spots Gabe and runs to the man, checking his pulse and sighing in relief when he finds one.

“Gabe,” Tony hisses, in case there are more enemy soldiers nearby. He gently shakes the man. “Gabe.”

“They’ve got Bucky,” Gabe says quickly, jolting awake and startling Tony. “Edward, they’ve got James.”

“Fuck,” Tony breathes. He closes his eyes, stricken, before helping Gabe stand and hobble down the hall on what is probably a broken ankle.

“Eddie, what are you doing?” Gabe demands sharply. “You gotta go after him!”

“I can’t take them alone,” Tony says quietly, harshly. “What I need to do is get you out so we can regroup.”

“Tony!” The call comes from behind him and Tony freezes, squeezing his eyes shut before he turns.

“Goddammit, Steve,” Tony growls at the man.

“Where’s—”

“They’ve got him,” Tony says, ignoring his pounding heart because Gabe is looking between them curiously and Tony knows he has to tell the men, all of them, who he is now.

“Okay,” Steve breathes deeply once and quickly moves into action, pulling his shield out and running past Tony and Gabe. “Tony, you’re in charge now!”

“I’m gonna kill him,” Tony says, glaring after Steve and startling Gabe into a laugh. “Come on, let’s meet the others.”

***

They wait.

They wait a night and part of the next morning for Steve to show up with Bucky. As they wait Tony tells them who he is.

“So you’re really from the future?” Dum Dum asks with a frown. “The actual future? Do I get my girl?”

Tony hesitates for a moment, as much as he knows about Steve and Bucky he also knows that things have _changed_. Besides, he actually didn’t know who the Howling Commandos had ended up with.

“I have absolutely zero clue,” Tony says when it’s clear Dum Dum is becoming impatient. “To be honest I didn’t really pay much attention to you guys. No offense.”

“Offense taken,” Gabe scoffs. “I cannot believe you didn’t pay attention to our handsome faces.”

“Well,” Tony hedges before breaking out into a grin.

“Hey now,” Monty says, holding out his hands in a peace offering. “He is Steve and Bucky’s soulmate.”

“Uh, I actually didn’t know that at the time,” Tony says bashfully.

The men all turn to him with various degrees of confusion. Tony may have skipped over the parts of the future where he was miserable and confused and _hurt_.

“What do you mean?” Jim asks. “You are over 21, right?”

“I’m 25,” Tony says. He glares at Jim because Jim knows that already. “But, uh, when I saw The Tea Maker, Bucky and Steve weren’t actually… alive.”

“Holy shit,” Dum Dum gasps. It’s completely normal for soulmates to not work out—or to be platonic or familial—but for a soulmate to be _dead_ is unheard of. “Eddie, how the hell did you live with that?”

Tony laughs humorlessly, a harsh and cold sound that has the others flinching. “I managed.”

They lapse into silence and Tony takes the reprieve to collect his thoughts. He doesn’t know what telling the men means for the future, but he knows that he had to after Steve blew his cover in front of Gabe.

“Now what?” Monty asks after a solid ten minutes of quiet, longer than any of the men had gone without speaking since Tony met them what feels like a lifetime ago.

Tony sighs because it’s been almost a full day since they made it back and there’s still no sign of Steve or Bucky. His heart lurches at what he has to do now, what they all have to do. Tony wants to stay exactly where he is and wait for his soulmates. But he can’t. They can’t risk staying in enemy territory any longer than they already have.

“Now we leave,” Tony says. He closes his eyes to will away the soul deep pain he feels saying those words.

They pack up camp and head back to the drop zone. While the men are subdued and they give Tony space, they also rally around him silently, offering their support—which he appreciates more than he’ll ever be able to find the words for.

At the drop zone, they find the extraction team and Tony has to find the words to tell Phillips that Steve and Bucky are both MIA.

They’re still alive, Tony can feel it, knows it in that part of his soul that’s connected to them. So until he feels otherwise, his soulmates are missing in action.

***

“We know where Schmidt is,” Phillips says one morning, three weeks after Tony came back alone, and Tony knows that this is what he’s meant to do now. To take Steve’s place in taking down HYDRA.

He stands, nods, and follows Phillips out of the room.

Phillips takes him to the lab that Howard had practically commandeered when they’d moved from the frontlines in Italy to London. Tony hasn’t spent as much time in the place since their search for a palladium replacement was a bust. Tony goes in while the Colonel waits by the door.

“Edward,” Howard greets with a smile, sticking out a hand for Tony. “It’s been a while.”

Tony smiles, shaking Howard’s hand. “That it has, Howie.”

“Eddie,” Howard counters but, as usual, Tony doesn’t react. Howard sighs. “Nevermind. I think I have a solution to your problem.”

“No fucking way,” Tony says, ignoring the way Howard flinches at the language. “Give it to me.”

“It needs to be tested first,” Howard tries to protest but Tony stops him with a hand.

“Howard, I quite literally do not have the time,” Tony tells him. “If I don’t do something now then either I will die by poison or I will be killed by Schmidt.”

“Okay,” Howard nods before leading Tony to the back where he has a metal chip in the same shape as the palladium core. “We need to replace the core and then, assuming this works, you should be fine for at least a few years without a new core. Eventually, you’ll need a whole new reactor.”

“This was my first model,” Tony explains as he pulls out the core. “My second one was stolen.”

“That’s rough, buddy,” Howard says, placing a hand on Tony’s shoulder and shaking once in a way that Tony’s sure is supposed to be comforting but falls short of the mark.

“Indeed.”

Tony screams as the new core slides into place. He remembers replacing the reactor the first time, how painful and nerve wracking it had been. How he’d sweat through his shirt and screamed for JARVIS to make it stop.

He wishes the pain he feels now felt like that. This feels like his insides are boiling, like he’s turning into a creature made of lava. He doesn’t feel human anymore but he’s not sure what he feels like.

Tony doesn’t know when he closed his eyes. He’s not aware of anything but darkness and cold for a blessed few minutes before the smells of a lab fill his nose. Soon after, the rest of his senses are back and Tony sits up with a gasp.

“What the hell was that?” Tony demands, glaring at Howard. “That felt like what Steve’s transformation looked like.”

“I may have used some of Erskine’s notes to help with this.”

“Christ,” Tony mutters. “As long as I’m not going to keel over at any minute then I guess we’re good.”

“Good,” Phillips says, drawing Tony’s attention to the rest of the room and the audience they now had. “Because we need to get you to Schmidt and fast.”

***

“Johann Schmidt belongs in a bug house,” Phillips says, leading Tony to a plane already geared up to go. “He thinks he’s a god. He’s willing to blow up half the world to prove it, starting with the USA.”

The rest of the Howlies stand by the plane, clearly waiting for Tony.

“Schmidt’s working with powers beyond our capabilities. But not, I think, beyond yours,” Howard gestures to Tony’s gauntlets. “He gets across the Atlantic, he will wipe out the entire eastern seaboard in an hour.”

“How much time we got?” Gabe asks.

“According to my new best friend, under twenty-four hours,” Phillips says and Tony wonders what he means by that.

“Where is he now?”

“HYDRA’s last base in the Alps,” Phillips says pointing to a location on a map he pulls from his coat. “Five hundred feet below the surface.”

“So, what are we supposed to do, I mean?” Jim asks, looking to Tony like he has the answers—which he does, but _still._ “It’s not like we can just knock on the front door.”

“Why not?” Tony asks, getting everyone’s attention. “That’s exactly what we’re gonna do.”

Phillips smiles, actually smiles, and somehow Tony thinks that was his plan the whole time.

“That’s a great idea, Captain Carter.”

Tony blanches, staring at Phillips before turning to the Howlies who are all grinning at him.

“No fucking way.”

***

“Arrogance may not be a uniquely American trait, but I must say you do it better than anyone. But there are limits to what even you can do, Captain,” Schmidt says, not turning to face Tony as he’s pulled into the room. “Or did Erskine tell you otherwise?”

“He told me you were insane.”

“Ah,” Schmidt turns to face Tony then with a small frown. “You are not Captain America.”

“No,” Tony says, raising a gauntleted hand. “I’m much better looking.”

Tony lets off a blast that Schmidt dodges because of course, it can never be easy. Tony tries to shift around the room, away from the weird blue glowy thing, but Schmidt doesn’t let him, turning the machine to face him.

Tony ducks out of the way as a blast goes off and twists to see a giant hole in the wall, grimacing at the thought of that being him. He rolls to his feet with more grace than expected and frowns, nearly toppling over at the speed.

“Fucking hell,” Tony groans, realizing what the use of Erskine’s notes really means for him. “I didn’t fucking sign up for this.”

“Hm,” Schmidt hums. “You’re stronger than you were, last I saw you fight. Quicker, too.”

“It’s called working out,” Tony pants, dodging yet another blast. “You should try it sometime.”

“I think not,” Schmidt says. “You’ve got some upgrades. Unfortunately for you, I’m on a tight schedule.”

Schmidt is about to send another blast when there’s a crash from the window and a shield flies through the room. One that Tony recognizes.

“Steve!” Tony shouts, running towards the man. “You’re alive!”

“‘Course I am,” Steve grins briefly before turning to where Schmidt had been. “I met up with Phillips outside. You and I are going after Schmidt, Captain.”

“I could get used to you saying that, Captain,” Tony grins. The two smile at each other for a moment before there’s an explosion somewhere in the base. “Right, kill HYDRA. Let’s do that.”

***

“I do not want to do that again,” Tony hisses after Steve pulls him up from where he’d been dangling off the edge of the Valkyrie. “Ever.”

“Not planning on it,” Steve says before he’s kissing Tony, pulling him in by the collar. “Sorry, ‘s just... I missed you.”

“I’ve missed you, too,” Tony says, kissing Steve once more before standing. “Is Bucky?”

“He’s gone,” Steve grimaces, head hanging down and vision going cloudy. “God, Tony, I—”

Tony wants to cry. He wants to scream and rage at the injustices of the world. More than that, though, he wants to tear HYDRA apart, limb from limb, for taking one of his soulmates from him after he had only just gotten them both.

“Later,” Tony promises, lifting Steve’s chin up to look the man in the eye. “Right now we’re going to kill this son of a bitch and make him regret the day he got that red fucking face of his.”

Steve nods, the look of determination back in his eyes, and the two of them make their way to the front of the plane, dispatching HYDRA goons as they go.

“You’re stronger,” Steve notes after Tony flings a soldier against the far wall. “What happened?”

“Solved the poison thing,” Tony explains as he punches a man in the nose, breaking it. “Well, Howard did; used some serum, I think.”

“So you’re not dying anymore?” Steve asks, wonder filling his voice.

“Not from that, at least.”

“Thank God,” Steve says lightly.

“Let’s thank God after we kill Schmidt,” Tony says grimly, tossing the last man over his shoulder. He gestures for the door and Steve runs through with Tony following.

“You don’t give up, do you?” Schmidt scoffs when Steve uses the shield like a battering ram to enter the cockpit.

“Nope!” Steve confirms almost cheerfully before attacking Schmidt.

Tony lets Steve distract the man as he goes to the instrument panel, trying to figure out the controls on the ship.

“What the fuck are these?” Tony says, pressing a button. Nothing noticeable happens and Tony groans, realizing they must be for something that he and Steve had already destroyed. “How the hell am I supposed to stop this thing?”

“You’re not!” Schmidt yells, jumping after Tony. Tony drops to the floor and rolls to the side, letting Schmidt crash into the controls.

“You know what?” Tony hisses, raising his gauntlet. “You’re on my last nerve.”

He hits Schmidt in the chest, sending him careening towards the cube just as Steve throws the shield, knocking the cube over so Schmidt lands on it.

“What have you done?” Schmidt yells as the cube powers up, emitting a pillar of light that seems to consume the man. “No!”

The cube falls to the floor when Schmidt disappears. Tony goes to pick it up, but then it burns through the plane, disappearing into the vast ocean below them.

“Well, shit. Hope no one finds that," Tony mutters turning back to Steve who is looking at the navigation system with growing horror.

“We’re gonna hit New York,” Steve tells Tony, his voice unusually quiet. “Tony... I—”

“We have to take the plane down,” Tony realizes, stepping next to Steve and grabbing the control. “We cannot blow up New York.”

“Okay,” Steve breathes. “I’m going to tell Phillips.”

Tony ignores Steve as he calls it in, aiming the plane towards somewhere in the North Pole and locking the control in. Steve is still talking when Tony turns to him so he shuts the communication device down.

Tony wants the last thing he feels before they crash into the ocean to be Steve’s lips on his own.


	7. Epilogue

He wakes up in a room that looks like it’s straight out of the forties. The walls are a hideous green, the bed a military cot. There’s a radio playing a baseball game, and Steve is right next to him.

Tony thinks for a moment that he’s dead and this is his heaven. Only, if it were heaven, Bucky would be there, too.

He feels a pang at the thought of his other soulmate, the one he had tried so hard to save and had still, somehow, failed.

Instead of mourning on his own, Tony shakes Steve awake. He can’t be alone right now. Alone would surely send him into a pit of despair that he doesn’t want to consider.

“Stevie,” Tony whispers, pushing on the super soldier’s arm. “Stevie?”

Steve gasps awake, looking around bewildered before his eyes rest on Tony. Then he’s pulling Tony into a kiss and Tony is helpless to resist.

“Fuck,” Tony hisses when their teeth accidentally collide. He pulls Steve into his chest again, just holding his soulmate who has yet to say a word. “I understand. I got you.”

Tony wants to pull Steve in for another kiss, to reassure himself that they’re really alive and Steve is really there, but them a woman walking into the room, wearing a wartime nurses outfit.

“Good morning,” the woman says, checking her watch. Tony knows watches and he knows that the brand she’s wearing isn’t from the forties. His eyes narrow. ”Or should I say, afternoon?”

“Where are we?” Tony demands, pushing Steve so that he can sit up.

“in a recovery room in New York City.”

“Dodgers take the lead, 8-4. Oh, Dodgers!” The radio announcer says, interrupting the ensuing silence as Tony and Steve regard the woman. They share a look. “Everyone is on their feet. What a game we have here today, folks. What a game indeed.”

Steve stands, pulling Tony up with him. Tony holds onto his soulmate's hand. “Where are we really?”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” the ‘nurse’ tries again. Tony scoffs.

“The game, it’s from May 1941. I know cause I was there," Steve says, looking at the woman with steely eyes. "Now, We're gonna ask you again. Where are we?”

The ‘nurse’ pulls out an alarm and presses the button before Tony can say anything. “Captain Rogers…”

“Steve, run!” Tony yells. He’s pretty sure they’re not with HYDRA, the room is too nice to be HYDRA, but that leaves them with too many possibilities for it to be safe.

They run from the room, crashing through the wall only to stumble into an empty warehouse.

“Captain Rogers, Captain Carter, wait!” The woman yells after them.

“This way,” Tony says, pulling Steve with him as they run out a door and onto a street. Neither man stops even though they both register that they’re definitely not in a New York they recognize.

Tony pulls to a stop, though, when they enter Times Square and the billboards are lit up with advertisements.

“At ease, soldiers!” A man calls from behind him and Tony and Steve turn to face him, their hands still clasped. “Look, I’m sorry about that little show back there, but… we thought it best to break it to you slowly.”

“Break what?” Steve asks. Tony’s looking at a billboard displaying the date and time with his mouth hanging open in a shock that he so rarely feels.

“You’ve been aslee—”

“Holy _shit_ ,” Tony interrupts when he gets his voice back. “It’s 2011.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AHHHHHHH IT's DONE!!! !
> 
> Thank you so so so much for reading this!!! Seriously, ILY 
> 
> You can join me on the [Stuckony Server](https://discord.gg/jtXcc3n) for updates on the sequel (YES! The SEQUEL!) and snippets of other things I'm working on (As well as to talk to the other lovely humans there!

**Author's Note:**

> You can join me and many others on the [+16 Stuckony Discord Server](https://discord.gg/jtXcc3n)


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